


Sister, Sister: Al and El

by ariesjinx



Category: The Originals (TV), Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Gen, M/M, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Twin Elena
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-22
Updated: 2016-06-21
Packaged: 2018-01-07 05:24:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 10
Words: 64,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1116030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ariesjinx/pseuds/ariesjinx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"What I’m about to tell you will change all your beliefs about the world."</p><p>No one outside of the Gilbert household knew or cared about the other sister. No one paid much attention to Elena Gilbert’s twin. And when her parents die, Alana figures it’s high time that she got away from those who didn’t remember she existed.</p><p>[Under Construction]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Running Away

**Author's Note:**

> I know it says M/M up top and so be forewarned that there will be ONE slash relationship happening. Also, fair warning, all relationships that aren't already established will take some time to catch flame so . . . please be patient with me. I'm not one to just have people jumping in the bed with each other - Especially not Damon who so has feelings for Elena right now. Just saying.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Running away has never been so easy.

I need a break from it all  
Some space from it all for a minute  
I’m trying to make sense of it all  
This place is so unforgiving  
Wanting and waiting  
And somehow it’s another winter  
Big plans and big dreams  
They’re running out

_May 26, 2009 – Mystic Falls: Gilbert House_

_Dear El,_

_By the time you read this I’ll be gone._

_Gosh, that sounds horrible. Lemme rephrase that._

_By the time you read this I’ll probably be somewhere in Alabama or some random place like that. I know, I know. Why the hell am I skipping town now of all times – because let’s face it, this was a long time coming._

_Well – I’m just not as strong as you El. And even if I was this town loves you. Mom and Dad loved you. Jen loves you. Jer loves you – although it is debatable whether or not he loves me more . . ._

_The point is: You belong here. You actually fit into this stupid town with its constant parties and fundraising events. You have friends on a freaking cheerleading team for God’s sake. You have that wonderful boyfriend who loves you so much. You go to all your classes and do all the little good girl things._

_Stop shaking your head, I’m not trying to be patronizing._

_Look. I know you and Jer will miss me tons and that this is a really, really, really bad time to put my travel plans into action. But I just have to get out._

_Not fair. I know. Just . . .  hang tough._

_I know you El. You’re the strong one and that’s what this family needs right now. Not the crazy, sarcastic, go-where-she-pleases girl that never fit in. Yeah, yeah. I know. I could have fit in like you seeing as I’m so awesome and all – but I didn’t. And that’s all water under the bridge and all that._

_So don’t worry about me. I’ll probably just do some soul searching and then end up right back in Mystic Falls in no time. It’ll be like I never left._

_I’ll be fine and whatever._

_I’m not writing this cause I want you to send out a search party or anything. Let’s face it; no one will really care anyways._

_I want you to promise me something. . . . Promise me that you’ll hold down the fort. And that you’ll look after Jer and make sure that he doesn’t go off the deep end. Promise me that, okay. I don’t want to return to the remains of a burnt down house or anything._

_And don’t forget to look after yourself. I know how self-sacrificing you can be._

_Always and forever,_

_Al_

_P.S.: It wasn’t your fault so stop feeling guilty._

 

Alana Serena Gilbert dropped the blue ballpoint pen she was holding onto the desk with a small sigh. She stared at the sloppily written letter before her until her vision turned a little blurry at the edges. Blinking to clear her vision, she then picked up the innocent white paper and folded it in half before carefully sliding it into a crisp, neon envelope. The only thing written on the front was the name _Elena_ _Serena_ _Gilbert_ scrawled in her careless cursive.

She sealed the letter shut with a finality that scared her. It was like the closing of a casket. This was it, no turning back, it was all over now. She imagined that this was probably what it felt like to write a will, only she wasn’t dying. Just leaving – or maybe escaping would be a better word.

Alana almost laughed at the formality of it all – a signed letter in careless cursive on heavy stationery. ‘Almost’ being the key word. But really, this was no laughing matter.

After all, not many people would even think to run away from perfect Mystic Falls. It was all high class and Forest of Eden-like – who in their right mind would ever think to leave?

Well . . . maybe Vicki Donavan, but that girl was messed up bad – like drug usage to the point of rehab bad. Thinking about it now, though, Alana was sure that people would actually notice if Vicki Donavan just up and vanished. There’d be search parties and pictures put on milk cartons and all that stuff. Sure she was a messed up kid who was a blemish on the perfect façade of the town – but she was a blemish with a super awesome brother that was well known and well liked.

And Alana sure as hell wasn’t Vicki Donavan.

Not many people would care or even notice if she left. And not because she didn’t have really cool siblings that loved and cared for her – but because she was invisible.

The unnoticed sibling.

Maybe it was because Elena was more outgoing than her. Or maybe it was because Elena was all about town spirit and getting to know people and making friends. Or maybe it was because they looked exactly alike that no one seemed to care to try and differentiate between them. Whatever reason there was, of one thing Alana was sure.

The majority of Mystic Falls believe there was only one Gilbert girl – and that was Elena.

Alana wasn’t torn up about it.

Much.

She had learned to stop caring a long time ago, a very long time ago.

Vaguely she could recall the first time it became obvious to her that she was invisible.

It had been when she was in seventh grade and had broken her leg climbing a tree. She had missed an entire week of school and no one, not even the teachers, had noticed her absence. At first, Alana had thought it was an accident or maybe everyone was in on some cosmic joke or whatever.

And then she started noticing how everyone referred to her as Elena more often than Alana. It was like overnight they had forgotten her name and was now struggling to remember it – which was ridiculous seeing as she had been walking around on crutches and Elena clearly hadn’t been.

It hadn’t bothered Alana all that much at first. Their names sounded so much alike that it could have been a simple slip-up. But then she started noticing that it wasn’t a mistake. People honestly believed she was her sister. That’s when Alana made a startling discovery.

The town believed the twin Gilbert sisters were one person: Elena Gilbert.

It was like they had merged bodies and Elena had won out. It was highly unfair seeing as she was the older twin, even if only for a couple of minutes. But in a way, it was kind of her fault for not correcting the problem when it first emerged. She hadn’t cared enough, though. She had thought that it was just going to blow over and then later on in life, she could just look back on it and laugh.

However, it didn’t change.

At first, Alana had been furious. What right did they have to just erase her out of existence? She ranted and raved for days and her family had been rightfully angry with her, but there had been nothing they could do. They could talk about Alana until they were blue in the face and people would just look at them and assume they meant Elena.

Slowly over time, it stopped bothering Alana. It kind of became a game. Whenever someone called her Elena, she would just nod her head and pretended to be Elena – then referred all the information back to the real Elena so she wasn’t left feeling confused when someone brought up something she should know.

Elena went along with it only because Alana asked her not to make it a big deal.

Soon, the act became a routine – kind of like how an actor would feel when they played a certain character for so long that it was almost like they were that character.

And Alana was simply resigned to the fact that she did not exist.

In the comfort of her house, locked away in her room, Alana would dream about the time when everything was different.

She would remember when she was the one that was friends with Bonnie and Caroline, way back when she and Elena had acted exactly alike. The sibling girls had shared the same interest, did the same things, and dressed identically, the way young twins usually behaved. She would pretend to be Elena and Elena pretend to be her and everyone had learned to just call them Gilbert so that they wouldn’t have to figure out which girl they were talking to.

Maybe that had been the start of the problem.

They had been so alike that they even spoke at the same time and said the same things. They had been one person for so long that when Alana began getting interested in different things and dressing a different way, no one had noticed – because Elena still existed. Maybe if she and Elena had changed at the exact same time people would still notice her.

Whatever the reason had been, no one cared much now.

It had been years since the name Alana had been mentioned outside of the house by anyone besides Jeremy – who hadn’t been too keen on the idea of his favorite sister being pushed aside. But no one really paid Jeremy much attention either. He was just Elena’s kind of crazy little brother.

“At least he’s remembered even if only slightly,” Alana muttered a bit bitterly to herself. With a small sigh, she shook the thoughts away. It was pointless to linger on them. In the next hour, she’d be out of this stupid town anyways.

Leaning back in her chair and stretching out her arms, Alana took in her room. Everything was cast in the shadow her little desk light made and she could barely make out the faces of the frozen people in her many posters.

Alana stared at them blankly for a moment, thinking about what she was about to do next. The feeling of intense loss crept into her chest, making it ache a little.

Suddenly, she pushed the feeling aside and began to tear her room apart, dumping all her worldly possessions into a large box. She had already packed up everything she believed she would need for this impromptu little trip. Everything that was left, she was deciding to store away.

It took her a total of thirty minutes, give or take a few, to have everything packed up. Little by little she disappeared from the one place that remembered her until no trace of her was left. When Alana was done, the room looked like what it had started out as – a guest room. Alana was sure Aunt Jenna would take the room. After all, her aunt had to be feeling a little creeped out sleeping in the room that had belonged to her dead sister and brother-in-law.

Smiling a little grimly at her work, Alana plucked up the box and then moved to remove herself from the remainder of the house. It would not do to have little random things depressing her remaining family.

So one by one, Alana visited every room in the house, removing everything that showed she had ever been there – like a robber stealing away precious memories. Away went the thick wooly blanket Grandma Gilbert had knitted her. Gone was the gleaming first place trophy from her spelling bee days. She even packed away her favorite coffee cup that was sculpted in the shape of Snoopy’s head.

She left Elena’s room for last.

Elena’s room was cast into total darkness – her room facing the back of the house and away from the glowing rays of the moonlight. Alana wasn’t all that surprised to see her sister passed out on her bed and drooling all over her pillow. In the last couple of days, Elena had taken full advantage of the pain meds she had been given after the accident. She claimed that she just couldn’t sleep without them.

Alana had been furious when she had found out. It hadn’t been a very pleasant argument, but then again they had all been a little on edge lately. Tonight, however, Alana was grateful for Elena’s bad habit. It just made sneaking around all the easier.

For a moment, though, all Alana could do was stand in the middle of the room and look around sadly.

This had been the room she had shared with Elena growing up – at least until the divergence took place and Alana had demanded her own room. It hadn’t been because she wanted to be away from Elena. No, it had been because she didn’t want Elena to feel bad about inviting Bonnie and Caroline over. It had seemed like a good idea at the time.

Now, however, standing inside this room and knowing what she was about to do . . . she kind of felt dirty.

Who was she to take away the memories they had made together? The little stick figures they had drawn together on their first day of kindergarten. The plastic rings from their eight birthday party. The stupid plastic tiara with pink fur Alana had given Elena for Christmas one year.

Shaking the guiltiness away, Alana steeled herself and set to work. She felt like the Grinch, stealing away all of Elena’s happiness, but it had to be done. Alana took everything that was hers, everything except a single picture of her and Elena when they were three and the charm bracelet they had bought for each other on their sixteenth birthday – the last birthday they had shared with their parents.

Almost as if it was an apology, Alana placed a long box with a white bow on top next to Elena’s head. The little card attached proclaimed: _Happy Birthday El_.

The rest of the stuff that Alana took, she threw into three boxes before sealing them up and storing them in the very back of the attic – unmarked.

She didn’t feel right doing it and she was sure she would regret it later, like when she came back and had to unpack all that stuff again. But in this very moment, she didn’t think she’d ever come back and leaving them in their original places would have been just plain cruel.

With a heavy sigh, Alana gathered her things and turned to leave.

The last thing she did before she disappeared into the night, was to remove from her key ring her copy of the house key – the one she got printed with purple and black polka dots – and placed it on top of the letter she left on Elena’s bedside table.

And then she was gone from quaint Mystic Falls, not even taking a second glance back.

 

‘Cause I’m running away,   
Running away  
I gotta do it

Make my escape from this world I’ve been living in  
Nothing’s holding me down  
I’m leaving this town  
I gotta do it

Deep down I know  
That as long as I stay true,  
It doesn’t matter where I’m running to

_Jesse McCartney – Running Away_


	2. The Birthday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Why does a visit turn into so much more?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I should be fair and tell you that I'll being following the show up until a point. Where that point will be . . . well not even I'm completely sure about that. Let's see what my mind comes up with. Also, I apologize to all you Damon/Elena shippers but that's so not gonna happen here. I think I make Elena's feelings on Damon quite clear in this chapter, but in case you're confused you're more than welcomed to inbox me ;D
> 
> A/N: italic with no quotes are Elena's imagination of what Alana would say and vice versa

They say that home is where the heart is

I guess I haven’t found my home

And we keep driving round in circles

Afraid to call this place our own

_Ingrid Michaelson – Are We There Yet_

 

_June 22, 2010 – Mystic Falls: Gilbert House_

 

Elena Gilbert lay in her bed, covers drawn up to her chin and her gaze directed at the tiny bit of wall beside her vanity. She had been awake for about five minutes, staring blankly at the corner as if it were going to give her ‘the mystery of life.’

It took her a minute to realize that she wasn’t actually staring at a blank wall but was instead looking at a pretty gold necklace that was hanging from a tack in the very corner. A thin stream of sunlight that escaped from a slit in the curtains hit the necklace, throwing off sparkles of golden light and glittery rainbows from the faux diamonds embedded in a swirling design around the locket.

With a jolt, Elena remembered who had given her the necklace and the picture of the two identical girls who were shown inside it.

_You’re the strong one_.

The words echoed in her head as if summoned from within the locket itself. With startling clarity, Elena realized what she was doing and her face twisted in disgust.

Was she actually lying there wallowing in pity and depression? What was she, some kind of depressed Bella Swan cut out?

“Come on Elena. You’re better than this.”

With the self-pep talk and the scary image of what Alana would do to her if she was there, Elena got purposefully out of bed. It was a new day and it was time she faced it instead of wallowing around like some pinning drama queen.

_That’s the spirit. Up and at em!_

However, ten minutes later, she was already feeling drained – and she hadn’t even had her morning coffee yet. Not that it would help much with the way she had been feeling for the past three months.

Shaking herself, Elena tried to pay more attention to the person she was talking to on her cell phone. She was walking toward the kitchen with the phone pressed to her ear when the words vibrating against her eardrums from the receiver caused her legs to stop responding.

“My mom wants you to call her,” Caroline Forbes was saying, almost as an afterthought. Sometimes Elena wondered if Caroline realized how the information she passed on affected the people she gave them to.

“Did she find something,” Elena questioned after a slight pause.

“An animal attack in Memphis,” Caroline confirmed. “It’s the third one this week in Tennessee.”

“And you’re _sure_ it’s a vampire?” Elena’s eyes flickered upward and locked onto those of Alaric Saltzman. The bedraggled man looked up from where he was fiddling with the coffee maker, a question in his blue eyes.

Elena broke the gaze, ignoring him for the moment to focus on her phone conversation.

“Yes, but that doesn’t mean that it’s Klaus.”

“Doesn’t mean it’s not,” Elena scoffed, moving further into the kitchen. She slid behind Alaric, patting him on the shoulder until he moved away from the coffee maker. Shaking her head at him, she pressed the big red button glowing on the front of it.

Alaric shrugged and moved sheepishly back into the living room where he pretended not to pay too much attention to Elena’s conversation.

“I’ll call her,” Elena told Caroline, leaning back against the counter top.

“Well call her on her cell.”

“Tell her thank you for her help.”

“Alright. Well, I gotta go. I’ll see you in a bit.”

“Oh! Caroline, wait,” Elena interrupted before Caroline could hang up. She shifted in unease, thinking about what the blonde vampire probably had planned for her. “Just . . .” Elena sighed. “Keep tonight small,” she requested. “Please.”

“Wear something pretty,” Caroline said by way of answer and then swiftly hung up before her friend could plead some more. Elena sighed again, staring at the phone for a minute before sliding it into her back pocket.

“Was that – uh – Stefan news,” Alaric questioned casually.

Elena sighed, something she seemed to be doing a lot lately, and moved to open the cabinet nearest to her to pull out a coffee mug and a travel cup.

“Could be more Klaus victims,” she responded.

“You certain Stefan’s still with him?”

“Easy to be certain when the alternative is that he’s dead.”

Elena looked up from where she was pouring them both coffee and saw the pensive look on Alaric’s face. Looking at him now, like this, she could see that he was more messed up than she had realized. His hair was sticking up in a couple of places, there were dark smudges under his eyes, and Elena couldn’t even remember the last time he had shaved.

“Are you sure—” she paused and bit down on her lip before trying again. “You’re still okay on the couch?”

The question sounded awkward to her own ears. She chewed it over in her head as she watched him fold up the comforter he used every night.

“Yeah,” he said quickly – too quickly to be true. He seemed to realize this because he continued by saying, “Yeah, I’m good,” as if that would make Elena believe him more.

“Because you spent half the summer on it,” Elena said gently as she picked up both the cups and crossed the threshold separating the kitchen from the living room. “If you need your own bedroom . . .” she trailed off, waving the closed travel cup toward the stairs.

“Yeah, sleeping in your dead parents’ room,” he said with a disgusted noise and a small shudder before continuing in a softer tone. “Or my dead – girlfriend’s room. Nah.”

Elena wanted to press the subject but he looked so lost for a moment that she left it alone. Instead, she handed him the mug with a strained smile. “Alright. Got it.”

Alaric sighed in clear relief, taking the cup from her and watching as she walked back into the kitchen.

“Hey, Elena,” he called, stopping her as she was gathering her things to head out. He opened his mouth to say something then seemed to think better of it and instead said, “Happy Birthday.”

Elena’s entire face dropped and in her mind a million faces flashed, freezing on one that looked exactly like hers but with a sarcastic smile. Blinking the images away, Elena grimaced and gave a whispered thanks before leaving.

Once outside, Elena paused for a moment, glancing down at her key ring where sat a single key covered in black and purple polka dots.

“Happy Birthday, Alana,” she whispered to the key, stroking it slowly with her thumb.

* * *

 

**Welcome to**

**MYSTIC FALLS**

**VIRGINIA**

**Population: 6925**

 

Alana Gilbert stared blankly at the rustic sign before her, a corpus amount of emotions rolling throughout her body.

She was a good thirty minutes outside of town, but she had stopped at the sign, staring at it as memories of the night she had left it behind without a backward glance swooped over her. It was stupid to be sentimental, she knew that. But it was hard when she was returning to a place she thought she’d never see again.

She hadn’t been too keen on coming home, not so soon anyways. She still felt a little disconnected from the place. But there was something she had to do – kind of like a promise she had to fulfill.

It had taken her a while to decide on doing this. At first, she had been reluctant to leave behind the nice little apartment she shared with a guy she liked to call Blade.

Blade, the irritatingly sympathetic and compassionate man that he was, had thought that it was a good idea. And Alana had learned real quickly that Blade was always right. It was funny how easy it was to trust Blade, but then again when a man saves your life it’s hard _not_ to learn to trust him.

Blade’s real name was Andrew Jacobs and he was a psychology major down on his luck and living in one of the shadier parts of New York City. About a week after Alana had left Mystic Falls, it was this city where she had ended up. Everything had been cool at first; Alana had basked in the excitement of it all. She had flirted with the romance of traveling the country with just the clothes on her back and her considerable savings.

Reality had come to her entirely too soon for her liking and in the form of a couple of men looking for a good time. They had cornered her in an alley somewhere in Far Rockaway and Alana had been rightfully scared out of her mind, thinking that she was going to be raped and killed.

That was how she had met her roommate for the next year. Blade had come to her rescue like a freaking superhero. He had defended her heroically with a tiny Swiss army knife – which is how Alana had come up with the name Blade.

And then he had taken her under his wing like the selfless man that he was.

At first Alana had assumed Blade was going to make some kind of move on her – what hot-blooded twenty-year-old that gives up their home to a high school runaway wouldn’t. But Blade was a pretty decent guy. It also helped that he was very much gay and infatuated with some pretty boy in his Biology Lab.

Alana had lived with Blade ever since.

She wasn’t one to mooch off of someone, so she worked a little to pay some of Blade’s rent. But Blade was incredibly set in his ways and he believed she should be in school. They had come to some kind of compromise where she did a bunch of online classes and he tutored her in anything she had a problem with.

Of course, Blade had given Alana some intense self-defense classes that somehow or another morphed into kickboxing lessons. As a 'thank you' Alana had dropped Blade a good amount of money, which the man then went and bought two motorcycles with.

It was practically impossible to give the guy anything because he always seemed to pay her back tenfold.

The sudden cawing of a crow overhead jolted Alana from her thoughts. She blinked vaguely and found herself still staring up at the sign that marked the boarder of Mystic Falls.

She didn’t want to cross it. If anything, she wanted to turn her bike around and run right back to New York. But Blade would never let her live it down if she returned without completing her task and he would be insufferable to live with after that – at least that’s what Alana told herself.

If anything, she could mail the thing it – she would still be keeping her promise.

Heaving a deep sigh, Alana lifted her leg, slamming it down on the nifty little device that had her motorcycle roaring to life. Revving the engine just for the hell of it, Alana pushed her bike forward and then was speeding off to the town she had once called home.

_You’re so brave sometimes, Alana._  

* * *

By the time night fell, Elena felt like she had been stretched way too thin.

All day she kept feeling like she was going to lose it – like she was suddenly going to break into a million-trillion tiny pieces. The constant anxiety that bubbled within her was tiring and Elena wished she could just go to sleep and never wake up. Just sleep all day and dream about happier times – like when her parents were alive and Alana was still around.

But she couldn’t because everyone was expecting her to put on a smile and act excited that today was her eighteenth birthday, even though the most important person was missing and Elena’s life had literally turned into a long, never-ending nightmare.

It almost made Elena laugh.

It was hard to think that just this time last year she had been mourning the loss of her parents and the sudden disappearance of Alana. And here she was one year later in the exact same place with the exact same problems, only a thousand times worse because more names had been added to the list of lost loved ones.

It was funny how much crap could happen in just one year.

Sighing, Elena ran her hands down the white lace of her dress, looking at herself in the mirror and wondering if she looked as different as she felt. The candles that were lit all around the room threw everything into stark contrast. The dim light glinted off her charm bracelet. Fiddling with a charm of a little cat, Elena thought about Alana.

She wondered if Alana came back, would they finally look like two separate people. Would Alana even recognize her? Elena felt like she had been thrown into a machine that had rearranged and changed her until she was but a shade of the person she used to be.

A movement in her peripheral had her looking up and meeting the electric blue eyes of one Damon Salvatore. He was standing in the doorway of Stefan’s room, leaning against the frame and watching her with that expectant look – the one that asked ‘Are you going to break down now or should I wait a few minutes?’

“Don’t worry. I’m not gonna lose it,” Elena lied, turning around so that she was looking at him instead of his reflection. Feeling just the tiniest bit guilty about the lie she added, “At least not before the cake.”

Damon shrugged at her words, rolling his eyes at the same time.

“Hey. It’s your party. You can cry if you want to,” he said in his oh-so-nonchalant way.

Elena couldn’t help the slight giggle that escaped her. It was just like Damon to insert some clique that fit the situation. For a moment, the stupid song played in her head and Elena imagined her and Alana dancing to the song like a bunch of crazy rave people.

Elena blinked the picture away just as Damon pushed off from the door, entering the room and looking around at all the stuff gathered around.

“Ah, Stefan,” he said, sounding like an exasperated mother. “Such a pack rat.”

Elena watched his progress around the room silently, trying not to pay attention to the way his jeans rode low on his hips. Her heart leaped into her throat when he picked up the picture of her and Stefan. For a fleeting moment, Elena wondered if he was going to break it. But the moment passed and Damon was putting the photo gently back in its place.

“I got you something,” Damon admitted suddenly stepping toward her. Elena sighed, opening her mouth to protest but he cut her off. “I know I promised not to buy you anything, so don’t worry; I didn’t pay for it.”

“You stole it,” Elena demanded incrudiously. She knew Damon was a lot of things but a thief . . .

“No,” he told her, sounding rightfully offended. He pulled a jewelry box out of the back pocket of his jeans and popped open the lid. “Found it.”

Elena looked down and a small gasp escaped her when she eyed the Celtic locket nestled against the fabric inside the box.

“My necklace,” she whispered, moving her gaze from the familiar pendent to look Damon in the eyes. The intensity she found there had her heart tripping for a minute. It was easy when he was like this to picture herself falling in love with him. The thought had her stuttering and she looked back at the pendent.

“I-I thought I’d never see it again.”

“Alaric found it in his loft. Figured you’d be happy to get it back.” A smile tugged at Elena’s lips – a real smile this time. Damon could just be so sweet sometimes.

“I am happy,” she told him, lifting the pendent from the box. It felt almost heavy in her hand. A reminder of what was missing. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

Elena looked up at Damon’s face again, her eyes locked on his. An intense sort of feeling seemed to pass from him to her and it frightened Elena. It was an effort to tear her gaze away, but she did it, wishing in her mind that Damon was just her friend.

Why couldn’t life be simpler?

It was her fault, she knew. She shouldn’t have kissed him when she had thought he was dying. But she had wanted to do something nice for him in his last moments, kind of like what he had done for Rose.

_That’s no excuse for a pity kiss, Elena_.

In an effort to break the tense silence that had fallen, Elena held up her necklace.

“Can you?”

“Oh, absolutely,” Damon agreed readily, slipping the now empty box back into his back pocket. He took the necklace from her hands, and slowly clasped it around her thin neck, his hands trailing over her skin. It settled in place, the pendent cold and heavy on Elena’s skin.

Before the situation could get any more awkward, Damon held out his arm like a dapper gentleman and asked in an almost mocking manner, “Shall we?”

Elena took a deep breath, letting it out slowly to compose herself. She hooked her arm through Damon’s and allowed the vampire to lead her from the room to her doom . . . err . . . to her party.

Elena could already hear the music playing on the ground floor and she had only just passed the threshold of Stefan’s door. The music practically thrummed beneath her feet, vibrating up her legs, and resonating in her chest.

As she walked carefully down the second flight of stairs, Elena’s eyes widened.

Every inch of the house was crawling with people.

Elena was pretty sure she didn’t even _know_ this many people. But they all seemed to know her if the many “Happy birthday, Elena” that she received were any clue.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Damon let go of Elena suddenly, his arm shooting out to grab hold of a bottle of liquor a girl walking by was cradling.

“You don’t want that,” he told her, looking deep into her eyes as he tapped the cap of the bottle. “You want the cheap young stuff over by the cheap young people.” Damon smiled tightly and the girl stared blankly at him in a compelled daze before nodding and walking away with her friends.

“You like,” a voice questioned and Elena watched with mild irritation as Caroline pushed her way over toward them. She looked a pretty picture dressed up in a little black summer dress. Elena grimaced at her and Caroline back tracked. “Don’t answer that,” she said.

“This is keeping it small,” Elena demanded in a strained voice, looking out over the crowd of practical strangers and feeling a little nauseous. She shifted her gaze back to Caroline to see the blonde beaming up at her hopefully.

Sighing Elena decided to bite the bullet on this one. She would have felt enormously guilty if she was the one to wipe that excited smile from Caroline’s face.

“What are we drinking,” she asked with a roll of her eyes and Caroline smiled before grabbing Elena’s wrist and then whisking her away. 

* * *

Alana whistled cheerfully as she navigated the streets of Mystic Falls, her favorite leather jacket thrown casually over her shoulder. Her messenger bag, filled with things that she would never leave hanging around, thumped comfortably against her side with every step. The heels of her combat boots clicked rhythmically against the pavement, almost echoing around her in the silence that fell over the town.

Night had fallen quickly, a sign that said she needed to do what she had come here to do and vamoose. The air was stiff with heat and her arms felt sticky with sweat. In a way, this was all kind of comforting and familiar. The thick heady air of Virginia. The quiet of a town that fell silent with the fall of the sun. The cheery atmosphere of a close niche.

It was all so nostalgic and it left a lump in Alana’s throat. She was surprised to find that she actually _missed_ Mystic Falls.

Surprise, surprise.

But maybe that’s what happens when a person comes back to the place where they grew up, no matter how much they came to despise that place. And it had been fun roaming around town today, pretending to be Elena. It was also surprisingly easy, but then again, she knew Elena so well that it probably would always be easy. It was kind of like slipping into a pair of well-worn jeans.

Nodding her head along to the beat she had in her mind and tapping out the rhythm on her thigh, Alana wondered for a moment if she should crash the party Caroline Forbes had been raving about in the Grill today. It should be kind of fun to see how Elena had decided to celebrate the wonderful age of eighteen.

A sharp pain spiked through Alana at the thought, however, and she quickly shook it away. Really, by now she should have completely gotten over the fact that no one really missed her.

_I miss you, Alana. I’ll always miss you._

Sighing longingly, Alana turned the corner and suddenly found herself standing at the end of her street. For a moment she just stood there, looking down the darkened road that twisted off into the distance.

The houses were lined up in neat little rows like a stack of gingerbread houses. All the homes were specially made with minute details that separated them from their neighbors. One house, Alana knew, had roses carved into their steps. She spent one summer babysitting the kid that lived there.

Lined up together like this and sitting in the dark the houses all looked vaguely similar, but Alana grew up on this street. She could easily pick out which house was hers through the gloom.

The Gilbert house was the only house with pillars holding up the awning over the long porch. Even though Alana was standing at the end of the street, she could see it clearly in her mind’s eye.  The white paint that had turned off-white with age. The bushes that sat pressed up against the porch. The steps that lead up to the house painted a calming deep green. The single door made of dark oak and carved intricately. The chairs that sat underneath the front windows with its green shutters.

Alana felt homesick.

She smiled bitterly as memories swarmed her. They flashed across her eyes.

The first time Jeremy had a drink and threw up all over the lawn.

That time she, Elena, Bonnie, and Caroline had had that tea party.

The one time when Aunt Jenna had stopped by and they had tackled her in the yard.

The time Elena found an abandoned cat and it had scratched their dad in the face.

Shaking the memories away, Alana started making her way down the street once more. She approached the house like a person would approach a rabid animal. All the while she kept a watchful eye out, making sure no one noticed her lurking around the Gilbert house. The lights were all out except the one over the porch, signaling that no one was home.

Perfect.

As Alana walked up the four steps leading to the porch, she reached for her key ring before suddenly remembering that she no longer owned the key to this house.

“Nice going Alana,” she mumbled to herself, mentally palming her forehead. Sighing she stared at the front door, her eyes tracing the swirling pattern in the wood before she turned away from it.

It was lucky that she knew this house well.

Meaning she knew exactly how to break in. So with a couple of acrobatic moves she never really knew she could do and the artful skill of being able to jimmy open any lock, Alana was tumbling into the silent house with a feeling of triumph.

Standing up, Alana looked around Jeremy’s darkened room vaguely as she absently dusted her clothes off. She couldn’t really make out much in the dark, but then again this wasn’t a leisure visit. Grinning almost manically, Alana slipped out of the room and set to work. 

* * *

Elena stared blankly down at Alana’s key, twisting it between her fingers as loneliness and longing swirled inside her body. She never used the key, but she held on to it with the thought that Alana would be back soon. She had promised – sort of.

It was stupid to miss Alana this much. It wasn’t like she was dead or anything. But, like with Stefan, it hurt to know that Alana was somewhere out there in the world and Elena had no idea what was going on with her. Was she happy? Was she doing anything important? Had she found someone to take care of her?

The not knowing was gnawing away at Elena until she was just left feeling exhausted.

And then there was Stefan.

That was a whole other can of worms.

Just thinking about him and the stuff Damon had told her a while ago about him – about the Ripper . . . it had tears welling up in her eyes.

But Elena knew.

She had a feeling deep down in her heart that Stefan – _her_ Stefan – was still out there.

Shaking the thoughts from her head, Elena inserted her own key into the door, twisting it open and stepping inside. Her head was pounding furiously even though she had only had a little bit to drink.

Maybe Caroline was right and she really should just get on with her life.

_You know you’ve sunk low if you’re taking advice from Caroline._

A shuffling sound from the living room drew Elena’s attention and she turned, looking on in confusion as Alaric stuffed clothes into a large bag.

“What are you doing,” Elena demanded softly and she couldn’t help the hurt that filtered into her voice.

Alaric sighed. “I’m not going to stay here anymore.” He said it so quietly that it almost sounded like an afterthought.

Elena wanted to pretend like she hadn’t heard him.

“What?”

Alaric turned so that he could look at her. His weary eyes roamed her face, taking in her stunned expression, before drifting away again.

“Why,” Elena wanted to know.

“I’m not a role model. You know.” Alaric admitted, sounding as if he was disappointed to be saying the words. He shook his head and lifted his arms before dropping them. “I drink too much. I-I say the wrong things. I encourage bad behavior.” He turned, breathing deeply before he started gathering his things again. “At school I can pull it together, but in my own life – what with the way I miss Jenna, I just, I’m really not any good to anybody, right now.”

Elena watched on in stunned silence as Alaric threw the strap of his satchel over his shoulder, grabbed his overnight bag, and then headed for the door. Before he could leave, he turned to face her once more.

“I’m sorry Elena.” And he did sound truly apologetic. “You’re eighteen. You can do all this alone now. You can do it better without me.”

With those parting words, Alaric walked out the door and it slammed shut behind him.

Elena watched him go, a feeling of finality clutching at her heart. Tears welled up in her eyes threatening to spill over. Her hands closed painfully around her key ring and for the first time since her twin had left she wished desperately that Alana would come back home.

Alana who claimed that Elena was the strong one.

Alana who was the one who was actually stronger.

Alana who knew just what to say when things were bleak and who always made a bleak situation suddenly bright. 

* * *

The sound of the front door slamming jolting Alana into attention, her heart in her throat. She rubbed blearily at her eyes, looking around for a moment in confusion. It took her a moment to remember where she was, but after catching sight of her reflection in what was clearly Elena’s mirror it all hit her like a gust of wind.

Cursing her stupidity for actually falling asleep, Alana hurriedly snatched up her bag while simultaneously jamming her feet into her shoes. She had meant to only lie down for a moment and reminisce, but clearly her body was more tired that she had thought.

Moving silently now as the situation caught up with her, Alana looked around in panic and then crept over to the Jack-and-Jill bathroom that connected Elena’s room to Jeremy’s. She froze inside the bathroom, her hand hovering over the doorknob. Her brain caught up with her actions and she strained her ears. It came to her slowly, the quiet little snuffling that Jeremy only made when he was in a deep sleep.

Cursing again, Alana backtracked, hoping and praying that Elena wouldn’t suddenly decide to show up. She was in luck and she managed to slip silently out into the hallway. She squinted in the sudden light that was drifting up from downstairs, and her eyes made out that the hallway was empty. Tip-toeing now, she moved past the staircase, glancing down it. She could make out the white of Elena’s lace dress just at the edge of the railing.

Well, that just made things harder.

In her mind Alana pictured the house, mentally going over all of the escape routes. There wasn’t many short of climbing out of a window. And really, been there done that, shot the cop. Her sudden attempt at acrobatics only went so far. Sighing, Alana leaned against the staircase, trying to come up with a plan.

In that moment, the sound of quiet sobbing drifted up to her ears.

Elena.

Alana’s heart clenched in her chest and the deep seeded need to help and protect her twin leaped to the forefront of her mind. She knew she would be unable to leave without at least making sure Elena was feeling alright. Her sibling bond wouldn’t allow it, never mind her twin bond.

Resigned to her fate, Alana moved past the staircase and slipping into her parents’ room. She would stay for at least another hour before going to check on Elena – and then she was out of old Mystic Falls.

It was a boring wait, filled with anxiety as Alana’s mind came up with a million ridiculous reasons for why her twin had been crying.

To distract herself, Alana moved vaguely around the room.

She could tell that someone, probably Elena or Aunt Jenna, had cleaned up a little. The stuff Alana normally saw was gone. Like her mother’s jewelry box or her dad’s tie that usually hung off the door. Gone were the shoes that used to clutter the floor of the closet. Gone was her mother’s sash for when she won the Miss Mystic Falls pageant. Gone was her father’s collection of watches. Gone was the neat row of lipstick her mother wore.

Even the smell of them was gone from the room. The room was stale, stiff like no one had been in it for a long time.

It was a sobering thought and it hit Alana now like a two-ton train.

That had been her mistake in leaving. Like the little coward she was, Alana had run away from the memories and the mourning. She had run away from the idea that her parents would no longer be around. She had run away from her grieving family and the crippling loss.

It wasn’t healthy, but then again, Alana had never claimed to be healthy.

Sighing, Alana turned to look at the clock that was still hanging on the wall over the bed. She nearly jumped when she saw it. Almost two hours had passed.

“Huh, guess time flies when you’re wallowing in depression,” she muttered to herself in a sarcastic tone.

Silent as a mouse, Alana slipped from the room and back down the hall. She stopped in front of Elena’s door, shifting nervously for a moment. The lights were off inside and she couldn’t hear any movement from behind the door, so it was safe to assume that Elena was asleep. But how deep was her sleep?

“Either you go in there or you leave.”

The sound of her own voice rang loud in her ears and for a moment Alana thought that someone had heard her. A quick look around showed nothing, however. Shaking the paranoia away, she turned back to the task at hand. Twisting the knob slowly, she pushed the door open and poked her head inside.

Elena was asleep in the bed, the comforter pulled up to under her chin. Seeing Elena like this brought back memories of the numerous times Alana would sneak in here in the dead of the night and rouse her sister so that they could chat. It was during those times that Alana let Elena see how much she was suffering in this town.

Alana grimaced at the reminder before she slipped fully into the room and tip-toed over to the bed. Elena was breathing deeply, her mouth partly open. There were tear tracks still on her face which meant that she had probably cried herself to sleep.

Alana frowned at that and her twin-instincts kicked up to full notch. She didn’t think too hard about her next action. Slipping out of her shoes and placing her bag carefully on the floor, Alana nudged her way under Elena’s blanket.

Elena reflectively moved to accommodate her and her eyes fluttered open a little. Alana froze, thinking Elena had woken up – especially when the younger twin turned over so that she was facing Alana.

“Al,” Elena whispered, her eyes fluttering shut again.

“Shh,” Alana whispered back, trying to keep her panic from showing. Luckily enough, Elena simply smacked her lips and then snuggled down into her pillows once more.

Alana visibly relaxed, leaning back against the headboard. She lifted her hand and started combing her fingers through Elena’s hair, allowing the mundane action to lull her sister into a deeper sleep – like she had done in the past when Elena had had nightmares and vice versa.

“Al, I miss you so much,” Elena whispered suddenly, but her voice sounded dreamy, like she wasn’t aware of the words she was saying.

“I miss you too, El,” Alana told her soothingly, and she smiled a little as she played with Elena’s hair.

“When are you coming back? I _need_ you here. Please come back. Please. . . .”

Everything in Alana froze and for a moment, she didn’t know what to say. But she didn’t need to say anything because Elena had fallen right back into a deep sleep.

Sighing, Alana stayed there for a moment and allowed herself to bask in her twin’s presence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you liked that. So there's both Elena and Alana. More Alana to come in the next chapter :)


	3. Smells Like Teen Spirit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Homecomings shouldn't be THIS dramatic.

_She lives in a fairy tale_

_Somewhere too far for us to find_

_Forgotten the taste and smell_

_Of a world that she’s left behind_

_Paramore – Brick By Boring Brick_

_September 6, 2012 – Mystic Falls: Mystic High School_

 

The sleek 2004 Ducati motorcycle slid smoothly into a parking space at the front of the school, the rumbling engine turning off in the next second. A few heads turned to get a good look at the rider, who was clearly female what with the long chestnut hair that stopped just under her ribcage and curvy body clad in leather.

The girl smoothly removed her helmet, placing it on the back seat of the bike after she slid off of it and looked up at the school with amused brown eyes.

And that was how the rumor spread that Elena Gilbert was having some kind of rebellious outbreak.

Later as everyone was murmuring about how Elena had been caught out front on a ‘smoking blue motorbike’, the real bike’s owner, Alana Gilbert was getting herself re-registered at the front office. It was a tedious process, made all the harder given the fact that no one really remembered that the Gilberts had had another child.

“Look, lady. All of my transcripts are right here. They’re even signed and everything. And if you _really_ don’t believe that they’re authentic then you can even get in touch with the people who signed them using this number,” Alana told the receptionist, trying to keep her tone polite and even. She received the stank-eye anyways, but that could have been because she was jabbing impatiently at the documents spread out before her.

The lady eyed her suspiciously, her lips pursed but even she couldn’t deny the facts that were staring her dead in the face.

“Find then, Ms. _Gilbert_ ,” the black woman finally gave in with an annoyed sigh. She then waved her hand impatiently toward the back wall. “Why don’t you sit down over there while I get your schedule in order?”

Alana let a terse smile flit onto her face before she whirled around and walked toward the back of the small room. She threw herself down into the chair, crossing her leather-clad legs as she leaned back. Shifting around for a few moments, she finally slouched down into a semi-comfortable position. As she waited she tapped out a beat on the hood of her helmet and looked around the room.

Not much had changed in the year that she had been gone. There was still a mass of plants gathered in a corner, the chairs were the same worn plastic that could never be comfortable, and the receptionist was still an irritable bitch.

And to think Alana had actually started to miss the place.

Sighing, Alana thought back to her little room at the motel in town. It was unreasonable to stay there and she knew she should have gone straight home when she had officially gotten back two days ago, but something had stopped her. Now she was wondering if it was her dramatic side that wanted to make some kind of big entrance – and what better way than to show up on the first day of classes and confuse everyone into thinking they were seeing double.

“Ms. Gilbert,” the receptionist called, drawing Alana’s attention. Alana stood and approached the desk only to have some papers shoved into her face. “I’m sure you know where everything is,” the lady said and then went back to clacking away at her laptop.

Alana rolled her eyes at the rude behavior and strolled out of the room without even a thank you. Not that the woman would have noticed seeing as she was just _so_ interested in whatever it was on the computer.

Humming quietly to herself, Alana left the tiny office and went in search of her locker – from the numbers scrawled on the top of her schedule it was probably somewhere on the other side of the school.

Great. Alana just hoped that her classes were near it. It would suck to be stuck carrying around a bunch of textbooks because her locker was so far away.

Alana had just located her locker and was trying to shove her helmet inside when she felt a pair of eyes boring into her back. She looked around curiously, noticing a really hot guy making a beeline toward her. She froze for a moment, her palms sweating a little bit at the sight of him.

He was really gorgeous – like supermodel gorgeous. He had the whole broody look and chiseled jaw thing going for him. His shoulders were super broad, like a football player, and he was a little on the short side standing at about five ten maybe.

Alana pegged him as the Prince Charming type, which wasn’t _her_ type but she could look anyways, right? And as he got closer, she noticed that his eyes were an intense kind of green. And boy was Alana an eyes person.

Shoving her fan girl thoughts aside, Alana pasted a polite smile on her face and arched her brow questioningly.

“Elena,” the hottie greeted and Alana’s entire face fell. Of course, this guy thought she was Elena, why else would he come up to her. Well damn, she hadn’t even been here five minutes and already someone was mistaking her. Talk about a complete mood killer.

Then again, no one exactly knew she was back.

For a moment, Alana wondered what she was doing. Why had she come back to this stupid town again? And then Elena’s words rolled through her mind.

_I_ need _you here. Please come back._

Sighing quietly to herself, Alana turned back to her locker and settled for ignoring the hottie. She slowly gathered her things, consulting her schedule to find out which books she needed, and then turned to head to her first class.

“Whoa!” Hottie stepped smoothly into Alana’s way, an amused expression on his square face. Alana noticed the casual way he held himself; the cocky tilt of his head as if he were looking down on her, and she started reconsidering his Prince Charming classification. Her mother always told her not to judge a book by its cover.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

“Uh, my class,” Alana said in a ‘duh’ tone and moved to walk around the guy. He was a persistent one, however, simply sliding into her way once more. Alana glared up at him.

“We went over this already, Elena. Class is this way.” He pointed in the opposite direction Alana was supposed to be headed.

“No,” Alana said in a tone that suggested she was talking to someone memory impaired. “My class is that way. But thanks for trying to be helpful,” she finished sarcastically. She then moved around him with a mocking pat on the shoulder. Before she could get very far, the guy’s arm shot out and he wrapped his thick fingers around her tiny wrist.

Alana stared at the hottie-turned-creep’s hand and then followed it up to his face, a disgusted look coming onto hers. She wondered vaguely how Elena even knew this douche bag and if her twin was in any kind of trouble.

“Elena you really don’t want to make me any more irritated with you. This is for your own good,” the guy was saying, sounding so sure of himself that Alana wondered what planet he lived on because his ego was entirely too huge to fit on Earth.

“Look,” Alana said slowly, turning so that she was facing him and so that her arm wasn’t twisted into a weird position. “I don’t know who the hell you are or what the hell you’re talking about. What I do know is that you can’t take a hint. So I’m going to try this one more time.” Here Alana pasted her most polite smile on her face and said in an overly sugary voice, “Let go of me or I will plant my fist into your face.”

The creep blinked for a few seconds before a smirk made its way onto his annoyingly perfect face.

“Come now, Elena. We both know you won’t hit me,” the guy said, his fingers tightening threateningly around her wrist.  Alana winced at the spike of pain that shot up her arm and then gritted her teeth in anger.

That’s it, she thought. She didn’t care how pretty this guy was, she wasn’t afraid to bloody up his perfect little nose.

Resolved now, Alana dropped her bag on the floor with a satisfying thump. Then she twisted her body expertly so that her leg was lifted into the air. It was only a lot of practice and experience with creepy jerks that allowed Alana to land the kick to the guy’s face even though he was holding onto her wrist.

The guy let go of her, falling on his ass in shock. His hand flew to his face where he cupped his nose. He stared up at Alana with a shocked expression. Alana was pleased to see a little blood dripping down his chin.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Alana apologized in that same overly sweet voice. “Did I say my fist? I guess I really meant my _foot_.”

With that said Alana strolled off to her Math class, feeling significantly better now that she had let off some steam. Boy was it fun knocking cocky bastards down a few pegs, and she hoped she did Elena a favor. 

* * *

 

**Mystic Falls’ Spirit Squad**

**Back-to-School Bonfire**

 

The bright cheerful text on the flyer courtesy of one Caroline Forbes almost had Alana cringing away from the advertisement. Unfortunately, the little flyer was the only clue she had on where her mysteriously vanishing family was – at least the sibling part.

She’d gone by the house after school, only to find no one home. She’d thought about hanging around until someone stopped by but it didn’t help that she didn’t have a key anymore. She had assumed that at least Aunt Jenna would be around to welcome her home since she hadn’t had the luck of running into any of her siblings at school. But she apparently didn’t have any luck where her aunt was concerned either, and so she had spent the better part of the day wandering town.

Now that night had fallen, she hoped she would have better luck. Now that she was figuratively ‘outted’, she really wanted her own bed and not that cardboard the motel had the nerve to call a mattress.

The sound of music and laughter drifted to Alana from where she was standing at the border of the woods where the grass met the pavement of the school parking lot. Peering through the trees she could spot the blazing fire from the bonfire that gave light to the scene. Bodies twisted about, some people were dancing, but really it was just a group of kids hanging out in the middle of the woods.

For a moment Alana questioned the sense behind it – that’s what New York did to a person. It had people questioning all the things they had thought were normal before.

But this was Mystic Falls and this is what the kids did for fun in this small town.

Taking a deep breath, Alana went to join the fray.

It was easy to mingle in with the teenage populace of Mystic Falls now when they were all drunk or high . . . or both. No one really gave her much trouble.

She snagged up a red Solo cup that was luckily already filled with beer with a grin and a half-sung, “I love you red Solo cup.” Alana hummed the rest of the song as she weaved her way through the crowd trying to spot a familiar face.

“Elena! Hey,” a voice called out in Alana’s direction. On reflect Alana turned around, venomous words on the tip of her tongue. That is until she saw that it was Jeremy, her adorable baby brother, calling out to her. Boy, had he grown! Where those muscles or was he buying his shirts two sizes too small to make it look like he had muscles?

Jeremy came to a stop before Alana, panting slightly and looked her up and down. As he took in her outfit – her signature leather pants and a nice purple corset top – his expression turned into one of confusion.

“Did you change clothes,” he questioned but Alana could hear the real question in his tone. ‘What the hell are you wearing?’

Alana looked down at herself, wondering if she was dressed that differently from her sister. Besides the leather pants – and possibly the bulky combat boots – she didn’t think so.

“No, I did not change clothes,” Alana told him in a snippy tone. “And these pants match the leather jacket I just bought. I’m _so_ sorry that you don’t like them.”

Jeremy blinked, looking even more confused. Alana could practically hear his mind whirling around as he took in her words. It took him a moment, but after a careful study of her face and a couple shakes of his head, realization seemed to hit him.

“Alana,” he cheered with the excitement Alana had been hoping for. Jeremy immediately moved forward and pulled her into a crushing hug, sloshing a little bit of beer down the back of her shirt.

“Hey, watch it,” Alana laughed, pulling away so that she could look at him more closely. Yup, those were definitely muscles. “I see puberty treated someone kindly,” she noted impishly.

 “Well.” Jeremy blushed at that and rubbed at that the back of his head sheepishly. “Hey, when did you get back?”

“A couple of days ago, but I decided to surprise you guys at school today. Only for some reason I couldn’t find anyone.” Here Alana arched a brow questioningly but Jeremy just shrugged.

“Really? I was actually there all day,” he said, and the way he said ‘actually’ suggested to Alana that he wasn’t always there. She stored this information away for a later time. “We probably just missed each other.”

Alana nodded in agreement, taking a casual sip of her beer and her face twisted a little. The taste wasn’t all that and she really could have done without it, but at a party like this, you were hard pressed to get the good expensive clear liquor. It was times like these that she missed hanging with Blade the most.

“So, where is everyone else,” Alana questioned casually, taking another sip of her beer and trying to bite back the taste it left on her tongue. “I stopped by the house today but no one was there. I thought at least Aunt Jen would be around.”

A shadow passed over Jeremy’s face making him look suddenly younger. Dread washed through Alana’s body, effectively killing the happy buzz she had gotten from seeing her brother. The expression on Jeremy’s face was the same look he had had when he had been standing in front of their parents’ grave.

“What happened?” Alana’s voice even sounded full of dread.

“A lot, Lana,” Jeremy said in a quiet tone, the childhood nickname making him appear even younger. His head was bowed but he was taller now and so all Alana had to do was tilt her head a little to get a better look at his expression.

The tears gathering in his eyes coupled with the look of eternal sadness damn near tore Alana apart.

“Look,” Jeremy said after taking a calming breath, “There’s so much you’ve missed this year, Lana, that I’m not even sure where to start.”

 “Alright.” Alana also took in a deep calming breath. “Let’s go find El and then head home so we can talk about it, okay. I’ll meet you in the parking lot?”

Jeremy nodded and then headed off in search of his other sister. 

* * *

Alana was the one that found Elena first and she damn near lost her mind when she did.

There was her sweet twin Elena . . .

. . . trapped in a burning car.

This sure as hell wasn’t turning out to be the happy welcome back she had been expecting.

“Holy shit,” Alana cursed, running toward the burning vehicle, although she wasn’t exactly sure what she was going to do to get her sister out of it. Stopping to think for a minute, she started looking around for something to use to break one of the windows. She had just spotted a crowbar and was going to pick it up when the trunk of the car literally flew off, sliding a good distance across the parking lot.

Alana’s mouth gapped and all she could do was stand there, hands hanging limply at her side and stare in shock.

A man that Alana guessed was a teacher because she had seen him earlier around school ran around to the back of the truck, not looking the least bit alarmed that the back door had flown off of it. Alana watched in numbed silence as he helped Elena out of the car. And then they both turned back and dragged the body of that hottie-turn-creep out of the trunk.

Once they were a good distance from the wreckage, the car exploded into a ball of glass and flames – and even then the flames continued to lick at the metal frame.

Alana raised her hands to protect her face from the heat all the while trying to piece together the events that had just passed.

“What the hell is going on,” she demanded when she couldn’t make head-nor-tails of the situation.

All three heads snapped toward her. Alana could see the confusion on the new teacher and hottie-creep’s face but that quickly morphed into hostility. Alana blinked, trying to think of a reason as to why they would look at her that way – well she could guess at why the hottie-creep would hate her, but not the new teacher.

But it was Elena who had the most interesting reaction.

Her face went entirely pale and her expression shifted from confusion to fear to anger and then finally settled on shock. Alana was a little hurt that Elena wasn’t a little happier to see her, but she pushed aside her emotions for the moment.

“ _El_ ,” Alana demanded in her most commanding tone, her eyebrows arched as she waited for someone to tell her what had just happened.

At the sound of the nickname only the two of them used, Elena’s whole body jerked forward.

And then she was running toward Alana.

Alana managed to brace herself right before Elena’s arms flew around her.

“You’re back,” her twin sang, her arms wrapping around Alana’s shoulders in a strangle hold. “You’re finally back!”

There was that excitement. Alana smiled smugly for a moment before it turned into worry when she noticed that Elena was now crying into her shoulder. Bawling actually, like a newborn baby.

Alana immediately started rocking her and patting her on the back in a calming manner. She was still completely confused over the whole situation, what with the burning car and the hostile looks and the crying sister – it was enough to make anyone confused.

After a long moment of tense silence, in which Elena’s tears finally subsided into sniffles, the teacher guy spoke up.

“Um . . . I think we should probably get out of here.” He was gazing at the burning remains of what Alana could only assume was his car – given that he looked a little like someone had killed his puppy.

Well, that sucked. Alana wasn’t sure what she’d do if her bike went up in flames.

“Good idea,” Alana spoke up in agreement. “So, it was nice meeting you all,” and here her tone turned slightly sarcastic especially when directed at the hottie-creep, “but we gotta run. According to my baby bro, I’ve got a lot to catch up on. See ya.”

The teacher’s gaze shot to Alana’s face at her words and for a moment, he looked panicked. Alana however, didn’t care. She turned around; Elena still cradled in her arms and started making her way back toward the main parking lot. Her head was still spinning a little bit and she wanted to get Elena to safety.

“Wait,” Elena protested, pulling herself away from Alana’s body. “I can’t go home yet. There’s something I have to do first,” she explained at Alana’s confused expression. “Why don’t you go ahead and I’ll meet you there.”

Alana arched a brow, looking her twin over and taking in the familiar face marred with tears and a burn mark on her left cheek.

“Okay,” Alana drawled as she crossed her arms over her chest. “But you must be delusional from smoke inhalation if you think I’m about to let you out of my sight after you almost got barbecued.”

Elena blinked, looking a little stunned. Alana was actually hurt that her words came as a surprise to her twin. Had she really been gone that long that Elena questioned the bond they had and how deep her concern for her other half was?

“I _really_ don’t think that’s—”

“I’m going wherever you go. No questions asked,” Alana cut in sternly, sounding like the older sister for once. Elena blinked again before she sighed and nodded her acceptance of the situation.

“That’s what I thought. So,” Alana said, as she began nudging Elena so that she was walking again, “why don’t you lead the way to your car and we’ll get a move on.”

“What about your car,” Elena questioned as she led the group back toward a more civilized area. Alana almost missed her question because she was currently having a staring contest with the hottie-creep. He was staring at her as if she was some kind of puzzle. Alana was sure that he was wondering if it had been her that had kicked him in the face.

“I don’t have a car,” Alana told Elena, snapping her gaze back to her twin.

“Then how’d you get back into town? Did someone drop you off?”

“Naw, I have a different form of transportation,” Alana said vaguely, a smirk coming onto her face. But it was quickly wiped away when she thought about leaving her baby on campus. “And I probably shouldn’t leave it here. Which means, you’re gonna have to tell me where we’re going and I’ll have to meet you there.”

It was Elena’s turn to arch a brow questioningly.

“Why don’t I ride with you to show you the way?”

Alana thought Elena’s question over, pushing her hair behind her ear unconsciously. She looked her sister over, taking in her slightly trembling form and the paleness of her skin.

“I think . . . it would be safer if you were in a closed vehicle. Maybe next time?” Elena opened her mouth to protest. “El. Just trust me on this.”

“Fine,” Elena huffed, giving in. “We’re going to the Salvatore boarding house.”

“The Salvatore boarding house,” Alana repeated slowly. Since when did Elena hang out with the town’s recluse, Zach Salvatore? “Any reason _why_?”

“I’ll tell you later,” Elena said evasively, gazing determinedly straight ahead.

“Oh-kay,” Alana drawled, letting the matter go for now. She was sure to get the whole truth from her sister later. After all, Elena never kept secrets from her.

The group had finally reached the parking lot now and Alana immediately spotted Jeremy’s silhouette leaning against Elena’s Ford Escape.

“Hey there Jer. Guess who I found in a flaming car,” Alana called out with false cheer.

“Elena? What happened,” Jeremy demanded, rushing to her side. He lifted his hand to touch the burn mark on Elena’s face before turning to look at the teacher guy. “Ric?”

“You know, I’m not a hundred percent sure,” the man said. “One minute every thing's fine and the next my car’s exploding.”

Jeremy’s brows knitted together in confusion, and his eyes trailed over the group but no one was able to provide him with any answers.

“Listen, Elena has to go do something at the Salvatore boarding house, so you can head on home without us,” Alana said before more questions could be asked. Jeremy looked over at Elena with a significant look and a spike of irritation shot through Alana’s body.

So Jeremy was in on this. Was she the only one in the dark?

“Uh. Sure. I have to take Matt home anyways.” And then Jeremy was walking away before Alana could grill him for information. Alana glared at his back then turned her glare onto Elena, but her twin wasn’t meeting her gaze.

“Fine,” she said sullenly. “I guess I’ll see you in a bit.”

With that said, Alana stormed over to her bike. 

* * *

Alana sped the entire way to the Salvatore boarding house, the wind whipping fiercely at her body and the trees speeding quickly by her eyes. It was a freeing sense for the older twin and exactly what she needed to calm her raging emotions.

It wasn’t hard for Alana to find the boarding house, although she had never been to it. The once popular tourist visit was the only place about three miles out from the main part of town, closer toward Wickery Bridge.

It was a magnificent structure, was Alana’s first thought as she pulled around the roundabout. From what she could make out in the dim lighting, it was nice and large. It was easy to see why people used to frequent the place, but it was hard for her to see one guy living here by himself. She imagined that it would get lonely after a while.

Alana cut the engine and kicked down the kickstand allowing the bike to fall at a slant. She took off her helmet, shaking out her hair before turning to stare up at the boarding house. Since she had sped she had arrived ahead of Elena. She was prepared to wait for her sister, but that plan was blown out of the water when the front door of the house flew open.

Alana whipped her head around, expecting to see Zach Salvatore. Who she saw instead was definitely better than the grouchy man that had gone to school with her parents.

Alana was sure she was looking at the hottest man on the Earth. Okay, maybe that was stretching it, but boy was the guy sexy. Alana never thought she would actually use the phrase sex-on-legs, but this guy was definitely it.

He practically oozed sex with his wicked mouth, sex-me dark hair, and slouchy swagger. Alana could make out nice ropy muscles under his t-shirt and she definitely appreciated the way his jeans hung low on his hips. His body was long and lean and Alana desperately wanted to run her hands down it. If the hottie-creep had been well hot, this guy was scorching. He made Alana want in a way that Alana had never wanted before. She was pretty sure he could talk a man-hating lesbian into his bed – so really Alana couldn’t be blamed for being so lustful. And boy was she lusting. This guy made her think very bad thoughts, very bad thoughts indeed.

“Hey, how’d the plan go,” the sex god called out to her, stopping at the stairs. There were a good five feet between them and Alana watched in amusement when the guy did a double take as he took in the fact that she was currently straddling a bike. The sex god arched a brow, which made Alana practically salivate.

“Where’d you get that?”

Alana blinked before mentally shaking the dirty thoughts from her head. But before she could come up with some kind of response, Elena’s headlights flashed over her, blinding her for a moment.

The two turned to watch Elena pull up and Alana could practically hear the click in the sex god’s head as it occurred to him that she was not the person he had thought she was. She was going to turn and introduced herself, but it was pointless.

In the second it took Alana to realize what was happening, the sex god had her by the throat and was pressing her up against the front door. Alana gasped and tried to blink the stars from her eyes from where her head had collided harshly with the wood of the door, but it was hard to drag in any air what with the strangle hold the guy had on her throat.

“What the hell,” she just managed to choke out, scratching at the hands pressing into her neck. Dots were already appearing in her vision from lack of oxygen and her head was swimming dizzily.

“What are you doing here Katherine,” the psycho demanded on a low growl, leaning into her threatening. Alana got a good look at a pair of intense blue eyes before her vision blanked. Blinded now, she gagged and started kicking her feet wildly hoping to get in a hit.

“Damon, no,” she heard Elena yell and then she could suddenly breathe again. Alana dropped hard onto her knees, gulping in air greedily and then coughing when it scratched at her bruised trachea. Air had never tasted so sweet.

A moment later she could feel thin arms wrap around her and knew it to be her sister.

“You okay,” Elena murmured lowly, rubbing at Alana’s arms and patting her reassuringly on the back. Alana swallowed thickly before getting shakily to her feet.

The psycho sex god was still glaring at her, looking between her and Elena warily, but he didn’t look like he’d attack.

That didn’t mean Alana wouldn’t.

Before Elena could even think to stop her, Alana pulled back her fist and landed a solid right hook straight into the psycho’s face. Sadly he was so tall that she missed her mark and instead it landed on his jaw, but it did its job.

The man stumbled back a little from the force, grabbing his jaw in shock. Shock which quickly morphed into anger and Alana was pretty sure he would have hit her or something if that Ric guy didn’t jump forward and grab onto him.

“I don’t know who the hell these people are El,” Alana spat, rubbing at her neck and wincing at the soreness there. “But I’m getting real tired of being manhandled.”

“I’m so sorry about this. It’s all just a big misunderstanding,” Elena tried to explain.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever.” Alana shrugged off Elena’s restraining hand and glared hatefully at the psycho. It was a shame he was crazy because the guy was seriously hot. And to think just seconds ago she had been thinking wonderful lustful thoughts about him. “Just do your big important business thing or whatever it was that you needed to do.”

“Oh right. Um, I just needed to – to drop Stefan home,” and here Elena waved her hand in the hottie-creep’s direction. So the creep had a name?

“This big mystery thing you had to do is to drop this creep home,” Alana asked dubiously, drawing a glare from said creep.

“Creep,” Elena asked instead of answering.

Alana simply shrugged before turning to look at the guy Elena had called Stefan.

“How’s the nose,” she asked cheekily. “I see I didn’t manage to break it. Shame that.” Stefan’s jaw dropped at her words before he narrowed his eyes and glared at her.

“You’re the one who kicked me in the face?”

“Guilty,” Alana sang, and she couldn’t help the shit-eating grin that split her face. “Who’d you think I was? Elena?” This drew a snicker from the psycho and Alana turned to look at him with contempt. “Oh, don’t laugh. I got you too. I guess it’s not too much of a stretch to assume you two are related.”

The grin left the psycho’s face.

“Oh, um, Al, this is Stefan’s older brother, Damon Salvatore,” Elena jumped to introduce, if only to diffuse the angry tension. “They both moved here after you left.”

“I got as much.”                 

“Uh, and this is the new history teacher, Alaric Saltzman,” Elena tried again, directing Alana’s attention to the guy Jeremy had called Ric. So far he was the only one Alana liked, and that was probably because he hadn’t tried to attack her yet. She was holding reservations out on him, however.

“Guys this is my twin sister, Alana.”

“You never mentioned you had a twin,” the psycho – Damon, Elena had called him – said in an accusing tone. He was staring at Alana with a speculative look as if she were some interesting specimen in an exhibit.

“Well I really don’t see why that’s any of your business,” Alana snapped, moving into Damon’s face and baring her teeth. Damon looked down at her in amusement as if she were some small child clamoring for attention. Then he shifted his gaze to Elena and some secret message that Alana couldn’t decipher passed between them.

“Al,” Elena said in a warning tone, pulling on Alana’s arm. Alana glared up at Damon a moment more before backing off. But the anger that had gripped her didn’t leave. All that speeding had turned out to be a waste.

“And you, El,” she said, turning on her twin with a softer glare but a glare none the less. “You are a horrible liar. So why don’t you start telling me why we’re really here?”

Elena shifted nervously, biting her bottom lip as her gaze drifted away. She was looking at one of the guys behind Alana, conversing with her eyes.

Alana growled lowly.

She was really getting sick and tired of all the significant looks being passed around. Would it kill someone to just say something to her?

Moving forward even more, Alana stepped in front of Elena fully, shattering her twin’s silent conversation and forcing the younger girl to look at just her.

“Are you keeping secrets from me, El?” Alana winced a little when instead of the steady tone she had been going for, her voice held all the hurt and confusion she was feeling. Instead of mulling on it, Alana pressed on. “Why are you keeping things from me? You never used to before. What changed?”

Elena’s face seemed to crumple at the accusation and Alana almost buckled.

Almost.

“Ally,” Elena pleaded, using the childhood nickname that usually soothed Alana. She even reached out and placed her hand on Alana’s arm as if trying to placate her.

“No,” Alana refused, shrugging the hand off angrily. “I’m not backing down.” She gazed deeply at Elena, her eyes searching for some kind of answer. She couldn’t find one, but she staggered back anyways when a sudden thought struck her.

“Is this because I _left_?”

Elena’s brow crinkled in confusion and her mouth dropped open but no words came out. That was all Alana needed to continue on this train of thought.

“It is, isn’t it? You’re punishing me because I left. Why? You know why I had to leave, El. You know how miserable I was here.”

Tears were starting to pool in Alana’s eyes and she wiped at them furiously. She could feel the burning gazes of the Salvatore brothers and Alaric and she hated the fact that these _strangers_ were witnessing her like this. She never liked getting emotional in public – it was so . . . embarrassing.

“You know what. Whatever,” Alana spat, not allowing Elena to defend herself. Her voice was bitter now and just the slightest bit sarcastic. “Keep your secrets. I’ll just . . . just go home and catch up with Jer and Aunt Jen.”

The rage was all-consuming now, clouding Alana’s mind and spiraling her into action. She started heading back toward her bike, but as she was turning away she caught the look of utter despair that was plastered on Elena’s face.

Like a bolt of lightning struck her, Alana froze. Fear clawed its way up her chest and squeezed her heart with its icy hands. The same dread that had filled her when she had been talking to Jeremy came upon her now, and she turned slowly toward her sister with wide eyes.

“What happened,” she whispered. Her mind spiraled as she tried to think of a reason for the expression on her sister’s face. It took a moment to click, and then she made the correlation between her words and the look.

“Elena,” Alana demanded, her voice more desperate now. It was Aunt Jenna. She knew it was. They only looked like this when Aunt Jenna was mentioned. Oh God. “What. Happened?” Alana enunciated each word, her panic spiking.

The tears came slowly, big fat drops dripping from Elena’s eyes and sliding down her face.

“Oh Alana,” Elena whispered, and she looked so _sad_ that Alana felt as if her heart was breaking. Oh no, oh no, oh no.

“Aunt Jenna’s dead.”

Alana’s mouth dropped open to form a little ‘oh’. She blinked repeatedly and she stumbled backward a little. Someone caught her before she could fall, but Alana couldn’t tell whose arms it was that wrapped around her. She could feel her lips forming the question ‘What?’, but she couldn’t hear her own words over the roaring in her ears.

And then everything snapped back into sharp focus.

She could hear Elena calling her name over and over again. She could hear the rustling of the trees surround her. She could hear the chirping of the crickets and the buzzing of the flies.

Blinking slowly, Alana noticed that somehow she had ended up in the arms of Damon. She couldn’t even summon up any of her anger from before. He was holding her up at an angle and Elena was peering worriedly into her face – her own face was blotchy and red with tears.

“Alana, are you okay,” Elena was asking.

Alana didn’t answer at first. She struggled to stand on her own, and Damon let her go, but he kept a steadying hand on her elbow. Alana barely noticed it. She looked around at all the faces staring her. And then she proclaiming loudly, “I need a drink.” 

* * *

Alana sat curled up on the couch in the living room of the boarding house, a warm cup of whiskey cradled in her hands. She had drained the first glass in one go but had been staring blankly down at the cup since Damon had refilled it.

Alana could feel everyone’s eyes on her – everyone that is except Stefan, who had run off somewhere with a careless shrug. Alana had been glad, she didn’t like an audience and one less person hanging around was one less watching.

“How did she die,” Alana finally asked, looking up and locking eyes with Elena, who was sitting on the couch next to her.

Alana knew Elena was going to lie before the words even left her mouth. It was the little tells Elena had but didn’t know about – the slight arching of her brow, the quick shifting of her eyes, the twitching of her left ear.

“It was an animal attack in the woods.”

Alana’s eyes slid away and she took a careful sip of the whiskey, enjoying the comforting burn as it went smoothly down her throat. She stared at the fire that was crackling away merrily in the large fireplace.

“You’re lying to me,” she accused in a calm tone as if she was commenting on the weather.

Elena shifted slightly, her eyes darting to look at Damon for help. Alana felt the anger from before bubbling up under her skin, but she just took another swig from her glass.

“Look here, Snippy,” Damon suddenly spoke up, urged on by Elena’s pleading look. “Your aunt had a terrible accident and it’s not fair of —”

“I wasn’t talking to you,” Alana cut him off, fiddling with her glass and still staring into the fireplace. In her peripheral she saw Damon bristle but a sharp glance from Elena had him backing down. He snorted irritably before moving over to the decanter of whiskey and pouring himself a glass.

“Alana.”

Alana turned to look at Elena, her brow raised in a questioning manner. Elena shifted closer to her on the couch and reached out and grabbed one of Alana’s hands.

“You have to trust me here.”

“How can you ask me to trust you when everything that comes out of your mouth is a lie,” Alana demanded, her anger finally rising to the surface. “How can you sit there and tell me that Aunt Jen is dead and then have the nerve to lie to my face about how she died? Don’t I have the right to know so that I can mourn her properly? Or is it because I wasn’t here that I don’t deserve to know the truth?”

Elena flinched back from the words, her expression hangdog. For once, Alana didn’t care.

“Do you want to know why I can back,” she asked furiously and Elena nodded her head slowly. “I came back because you asked me to. Do you remember that?”

“No,” Elena whispered, her doe-brown eyes wide.

“On our birthday, I came into town to leave you a gift, just like I did when we turned seventeen. I wanted to see how you were holding up. And that night while you were half asleep you begged me to come back. You told me you _needed_ me. And so here I am. For you. And you can’t even tell me the truth.”

Alana snatched her hand back, curling further into herself and sipping at her whiskey. She knew she was being mean but the hurt she was feeling was just too much. She didn’t want to be nice. Not when the one person she thought she could trust above everyone else was lying to her.

Elena looked as if she had been slapped. For a moment, she didn’t seem to know what to say, and then a look of determination slipped onto her face. Alana watched her with mild curiosity, still sipping at her alcohol that was tempering her emotions.

“I’m going to tell her,” Elena said, speaking to Damon and Alaric. “Everything.”

“Fine by me,” Damon said nonchalantly, shrugging as if he hadn’t a care in the world. He was on his second glass of whiskey already, drinking it down like an expert.

“I think that’s a smart decision,” Alaric agreed from where he was seated in the chair next to them. “Especially given the circumstances. She has a right to know.”

“I wasn’t aware that El needed permission to tell me anything. And certainly not from you two,” Alana said in an annoyed tone, but she was ignored for the most part.

“Ally,” Elena began, moving once more to take one of Alana’s hands. Her expression was unnaturally somber and Alana frowned at the serious tone.

“What I’m about to tell you will change all your beliefs about the world.”

Alana arched a brow, looking skeptical.

And so Elena told her everything, from start to finish. And all Alana could do was sit there and listen to what sounded like a pretty awesome and tragic story. When Elena was finally finished, Alana had gone through two more glasses of whiskey and Damon had had twice that amount.

For a long moment, Alana stared at Elena dubiously.

“Let me get this straight,” she finally said after taking a deep breath. “The Salvatores are vampires. Caroline is a vampire. Bonnie is a witch. Mr. Saltzman is some kind of vampire hunter with a ring that keeps him from being killed by supernaturals. And we’re some kind of Petrova doppelganger,” she said all this with an expression of deep disbelief.

“It’s all true,” Elena said in a desperate voice.

“Oh, I can tell that you believe this is all true,” Alana agreed readily. She had been watching Elena closely looking for those pesky little tells, and she was a little bit shocked to find none. “But I’m gonna need some proof.”

“You want proof,” Damon questioned, jumping into what Alana had considered was a private conversation between her and her sister. “Here’s your proof.”

He drained the rest of his drink and set it down on top of the mantle of the fireplace. Suddenly he was across the room, his face inches away from Alana’s. Alana watched in absolute fascination as Damon’s facial features changed. Dark veins wriggled their way under the skin around his eyes and blood red inked into the whites of his eyes. Then Damon opened his mouth, showing off an impressive pair of large fangs.

Slowly the features retreated until Alana was left staring into Damon’s intense ice-blue eyes.

“Well, that’s certainly impressive,” Alana breathed and a quick smirk slipped onto Damon’s handsome face. She could feel that lust from before surging up inside of her and she angrily stomped it down. Now was not the time to be thinking dirty things.

“I aim to please,” Damon replied silkily still smirking as if he had heard her thoughts. He pulled away from her slowly and Alana felt her entire body heat up. In the next moment, Damon was walking back to the fireplace to make himself another drink.

“O-okay,” Alana said shakily after a moment, and she hoped they would all write her stutter off as fear and not attraction. Clearing her throat she continued, “So vampires are real and all that.” She still sounded a little incredulous and felt the need to add, “But I still find it hard to believe that you dated that douche upstairs.”

An irritated look flashed cross Elena’s face now and Alana felt a small sense of accomplishment at getting a rise out of her sister.

“Stefan isn’t like that really,” Elena tried to explain again. “He’s only acting this way because Klaus compelled him to turn off his emotions.”

“Right,” Alana drawled, swirling the amber liquid around in her glass. “And Klaus is this super powerful vampire-werewolf hybrid that wants to use your blood to create a vampire-werewolf hybrid army?”

“Say that five times fast,” Damon muttered sarcastically.

Elena glared at him.

“Yes, which is why I didn’t want to tell you at first. Since you’re my twin it’s only safe to assume that you’re also a doppelganger. Which means that Klaus probably won’t think twice about using you.”

“As if I’m going to let this guy use me,” Alana scoffed and waved away Elena’s worries. “Anyways, Klaus is the one that killed Aunt Jenna, right?”

“Yeah. He turned her into a vampire so that he could use her in the sacrifice to unlock his werewolf side.”

Alana’s eyes slanted at Elena and for a moment she stared at her twin before heaving a deep sigh and leaning back on the couch.

“You do realize that this all sounds very fantasy-book like right? Well except for the whole girl-gets-the-guy thing, because that part is obviously not working out for any of you, it seems.”

Alaric visibly winced at this jab and Alana felt instant remorse. He was the only one that she wasn’t irritated with so far.

“My bad, Mr. Saltzman.”

Alaric waved her apology away.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said with a strained sigh. “And please. Call me Alaric or Ric. I am living in your house after all.”

Right. She had forgotten about that.

Frowning deeply, Alana dropped her gaze to the glass in her hand. She played around with it for a while as she let all this information sink it.

It was a lot to wrap her head around, to be honest.

It wasn’t every day that she found out her sister was dating a vampire and her little brother had been brought back from the dead.

That thought brought about another question.

“Did you say that Jer was seeing ghosts,” Alana asked, looking back up at Elena with a wrinkled nose. Elena’s expression mirrored her twins at the question.

“Yes, he’s been seeing the ghost of his past girlfriends – Anna and Vicki.”

“Vicki Donavan, Matt’s sister who was turned into a vampire and then staked,” Alana clarified and Elena nodded. “And Anna who was a vampire in the eighteen-hundreds?”

“Yeah. This seeing ghost thing is supposed to be a consequence from when Bonnie brought him back to life. Apparently bringing him back defied some rule or something.”

“Sounds more like a perk to me,” Alana mumbled and then asked louder, “And how did Jeremy die again?”

“Chief Forbes accidentally shot him when she was trying to capture Damon.”

“Uh-huh.” Alana sighed, dropping her head against her knees. She held out her cup and said, in a muffled voice, “I’m gonna need another one of these.”


	4. Alice, Welcome to Wonderland

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Why is it so hard to get all the facts?

I found myself in Wonderland  
Get back on my feet again  
Is this real?  
Is it pretend?  
I'll take a stand until the end

_Avril Lavigne – Alice_

_September 7, 2010 – Mystic Falls: Gilbert House_

 

_Darkness rolled in like a wave of thick fog, creeping up and spreading wide to cover every inch of the room Alana was trapped in. It was a choking kind of darkness, wrapping inky fingers around Alana’s body. She struggled through it, wading around as if she was underwater._

_She was looking for an escape but everywhere she turned there was just more darkness._

_Something moved behind her and Alana whirled around but saw nothing. She could still hear it moving around behind her – whatever it was. She’d catch a glimpse of white at the corner of her eye, but every time she turned, nothing was there. It sounded like it was running, but no one could possibly run that fast._

_Could they?_

_Something suddenly grabbed a hold of her. Alana could feel icy fingers wrapping around her wrist. She gasped, whirling around but seeing nothing again. Yet she could still feel those icy fingers pressed into her skin. She just couldn’t see a body – it was almost as if the air itself had grabbed onto her._

_Alana tugged against the hold but the fingers held fast, digging into her skin to the point of being painful._

_“H-hello,” she called out but her voice seemed trapped. It got stuck in the air, going nowhere as if she was talking into a wall._

_“You’re mine love,” a smooth and dangerous voice whispered. Alana felt lips close over her neck and a sharp pain speared through her body._

* * *

Alana woke with a gasp, shooting up out of the bed and nearly falling over the edge. She struggled to regain her balance, tilting back toward the inside of the bed. The sheets felt too hot around her and she struggled out of them, pushing them away as she sat up fully. She sighed as the nightmare started to wear off and she leaned back against the headboard, breathing heavily.

The first signs of dawn were pouring in through the sheer curtains covering the bay window, casting the room in a deep blue glow. The clock by the bed announced the hour to be five in the morning.

Alana sighed again and glance down at her sister’s sleeping face.

Elena looked calm in dreamland, a welcomed change to the tormented expression she had worn the night before. There was still a slight burn mark on Elena’s cheek from the fire and it served as a reminder to Alana about all that she had learned.

Even now Alana couldn’t believe half the things she had been told.

It was all just so surreal now that a new day was dawning. She almost felt like she had dreamed it all, but she knew that her mind was just not that creative. If Alana had to be hard pressed to describe how she felt, she would have said that she felt a little like Alice after her very first visit to Wonderland – or maybe Dorothy coming back from Oz.

“What time is it,” Elena murmured suddenly, snuggling down into her sheets.

“Five fourteen,” Alana told her with an amused smile. Elena nodded but made no other move to show that she had heard. In the next second, the clock hit five fifteen and her alarm chirped for attention. “And I think it’s time for you to get up.”

“Oh right,” Elena moaned and she rolled ungracefully out of the bed, hitting the alarm clock on the way to the bathroom. In her sleep blind state, she almost ran into the wall. She looked over her shoulder and glared at Alana, daring her twin to laugh. Alana held up her hands, biting down on her lip to keep from emitting any sound.

Elena huffed and shut the bathroom door with a little more force than necessary.

“Why are you even up this early,” Alana asked when Elena walked back out of the bathroom five minutes later. She watched curiously as Elena started pulling out clothes.

“I’ve asked Alaric to train me before school,” she answered as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

“Right. Vampire hunter training,” Alana muttered with some sarcasm. Elena turned to look at her as she pulled her long hair into a ponytail.

“Do you want to come?”

“I’m good.”

Elena looked at her searchingly before asking, “Why were you up before me?”

“Weird dreams,” Alana answered shortly. “Which is to be expected since my life has suddenly become some weird fantasy nightmare.”

Elena’s expression suddenly became woefully empathic and she walked around the bed to give Alana a hug. Alana wouldn’t admit it, but it made her feel a little bit better.

“For what it’s worth, I’m glad you’re back,” Elena breathed softly into Alana’s hair. “I just wish the circumstances were better.”

“You and me both,” Alana said in an equally soft tone. She then pulled away and patted Elena on the arm. “Now off you go, Buffy.”

Elena was still laughing as she walked out of the room. Alana smiled after her before sighing and sinking back into the sheets. She heard the slam of the front door and then the sound of a car starting and then pulling away.

The house was too quiet this early in the morning, and the silence pressed down on her. Her nightmare was still heavy on her mind even though its effects had left her and kept her from falling back to sleep. Finally, around five forty, Alana got out of the bed.

She took a super long shower before heading to the kitchen to cook up something. It was her go-to method when she wanted to think. So Alana began preparing a large breakfast, complete with muffins, scrambled eggs, bacon and sausage, and pancakes.

While she cooked she brooded over the mess her little brother and sister had gotten themselves in. She knew she didn’t have all the details. There was just no way she could learn everything that had happened in the last year in only a couple of hours. And despite her reluctance over the content, Alana wanted more than just the cliff notes version.

“ _God_ that smells good!”

Alana jumped as she was jerked from her thoughts. She whirled around, spatula in hand, to see Jeremy standing over the island. He grabbed a piece of bacon before walking around the island to give Alana a hug.

“Morning,” Alana told him with some amusement, watching as he stuffed the whole piece of bacon into his mouth.

“Mornin’.” He grinned at her before moving to make himself a cup of coffee. Alana made a face – she was always more of a hot chocolate or tea kind of girl.

“So as much as I love it when you cook,” Jeremy started as he waited for his coffee. He turned to face her, his brows pulled together. “What’s on your mind?”

“Oh, nothing much,” Alana said casually as she flipped the last pancake out of the pan. She put it on the plate with all of the others and then placed the plate on the island. She leaned against the island as she waited on the muffins to finish.

“Nothing much,” Jeremy repeated skeptically, his dark eyes sweeping the kitchen. “You cooked a full breakfast and even washed the dishes. That’s not ‘nothing much’.”

“Jeez, am I really that predictable,” Alana asked hoping to deflect. Jeremy arched a brow and picked up his mug. He was still looking at her even as he poured milk and sugar into his coffee. “Fine,” Alana caved, throwing her hands up. “It’s all this supernatural mumbo-jumbo. It’s so confusing and I know I’m not getting everything.”

Jeremy nodded sagely as he sipped at his coffee. “You’re right. I probably wouldn’t have gotten it all if not for Anna. But not much had happened yet when she was around.”

“Anna,” Alana repeated. “Why does that name sound familiar?”

“She was my vampire girlfriend,” Jeremy told her calmly. “She died in the fire with the other tomb vampires.”

“See,” Alana exploded. “This is what I mean. No one told me anything about ‘tomb vampires’, whatever the hell that is.” The alarm on the stove went off and Alana moved forward to remove the muffins from the oven. She checked to make sure they were completely done before laying the muffin tin on a towel.

“They probably didn’t want to bring up all the shit Damon put us through,” Jeremy told her and he reached out for one of the muffins but Alana slapped his hand away.

“Wait until they’re cool,” she scolded him. “And what do you mean all the shit Damon put you guys through?”

“Well Damon came here to help get Katherine out of the tomb, only she wasn’t in there,” Jeremy said as he moved over to the island to make himself a plate. “There’s more to it but I don’t know it all. You should probably ask Elena.”

“Elena’s the one that gave me the cliff notes version,” Alana deadpanned. “She’s on that whole trying-to-keep-me-out-of-things-to-protect-me method.”

“Yeah, she did that to me too.” Jeremy shrugged and stuffed another piece of bacon into his mouth.

“Hey, leave some for everyone else.”

“You should probably ask Damon then. He doesn’t do sparing people’s feelings,” Jeremy told her as Alana shoved him away from the bacon. He managed to snatch up a few more pieces and Alana glared at him.

“Yeah, I’ll probably do that then,” she said as she tried to steal the pieces back. But Jeremy was so much taller than her now and she had to jump to reach his plate. This was what she was doing when Elena and Alaric walked into the house.

“What’s going on,” Elena asked as she took in the scene.

“Jer’s being a bacon stealer,” Alana said with a whine.

“Am not,” Jeremy protested. “It was on the table for anyone to take.”

“Yeah well I made it so I get to dictate who has what.”

“You cook,” Alaric asked with surprise, effectively breaking up the sibling bickering.

“Of course, I cook,” Alana said with an affronted look.

Alaric shrugged, looking a little bit sheepish. “Sorry?”

“What’s wrong,” Elena asked, peering at Alana’s face with narrowed eyes. “You only cook when something’s wrong.”

“I guess I really am that predictable,” Alana muttered with a shake of her head. Then she said to Elena, “Don’t worry about it. I figured it all out. I’m going to go get ready for school now.” She made a quick escape but she could feel Elena’s eyes following her out of the room. 

* * *

Alana pulled Duncan – her bike – smoothly up in front of the Salvatore boarding house. First period had long since started so she was banking on the fact that Stefan would be in class. Actually, she was avoiding Rebekah, who everyone had warned her to stay away from least Klaus find out she existed. The last thing anyone needed was little sis running off to big bro telling him that his blood bank had a living, viable double.

Which left just her and Damon – something that Elena wouldn’t be happy to find out Alana was sure. Especially since she had lied about going to school today.

But she really needed to have all the facts.

Shaking the thoughts out of her head, Alana turned off Duncan and walked up to the door. She knocked soundly on the thick wood and waited. After a minute had passed and no one had shown up, she knocked again.

Still no answer.

Alana rolled her eyes and pushed open the front door. She wasn’t surprised to find it unlocked. When you’re a vampire who could kill people with a simple flick of a wrist, you just wouldn’t be all that concerned about locking the front door.

The foyer was completely empty, as was the living room. Alana looked around the place with open curiosity. She had never been inside before – save for last night. The place was absolutely massive.

It had a high vaulting ceiling and low lighting that gave it an old world feel. That coupled with the random antique items placed around and the dark wood the entire house was made of, Alana felt like she had stepped into a place that was frozen in time.

“Can I help you with something,” a voice drawled behind her, and Alana almost dropped the figurine she had just picked up from off of the fireplace. She turned around to see Damon leaning casually against the couch, his arms crossed over his bare chest and his dark hair dripping water.

“Yes you can,” Alana told him, placing the figurine back. She locked eyes with him and cocked her hip. “You can tell me about everything I’ve missed since I’ve been gone.”

“No can do Clone,” Damon mocked. “So run along. I’m busy.”

“Busy doing what,” Alana demanded. “It’s not like you have a job or anything.” Damon narrowed his eyes at her before smirking. He pushed off from the couch and stalked toward her. Alana kept her eyes fixed firmly on his face and not his chest, where his button up was hanging carelessly open – this was no time to get distracted by the man’s sex appeal.

“Last I checked, my job was to keep your sister alive,” he told her as he leaned in over her. He braced his arm on the wall above her head and angled his body to block her one exit, successfully boxing her in by the edge of the fireplace.

“Yeah, well she has an emotionless bodyguard right now,” Alana told him, crossing her arms over her chest and standing her ground. Damon stared down at her for a moment before laughing and backing away.

“Nicely done,” he said in a mocking tone as he poured himself a drink. “You want one,” he then asked teasingly.

“Sure,” Alana said easily and got the pleasure of seeing shock flash across Damon’s face for a moment. She took the drink, knocking it back, before saying, “So let’s start with the tomb vampires.”

Damon sipped at his drink but said nothing, although he did arch his brow and Alana took that as a sign for her to continue.

“You wanted to release Katherine, right? Why? You had to have known what an evil bitch she was.”

“I don’t like that question. Next,” Damon told her dully as he poured himself another drink. Alana sighed quietly. This was going to be a little harder than she had first assumed. 

* * *

“Where have you been,” was the first thing out of Elena’s mouth when Alana walked through the front door. Alana blinked blankly, looking behind her to see if there was someone else standing there. “I’m talking to you,” Elena growled.

“Me,” Alana repeated.

“Yes, you. You weren’t at school and you’ve been gone all day. So where were you?”

“Um, out,” Alana told her with a shrug. She walked past Elena and headed for the kitchen. It was around dinner time and knowing her family, no one had probably eaten yet.

“Out where,” Elena demanded as she followed after Alana.

“Out, out,” Alana said with a roll of her eyes. She opened up the fridge to see what all they had. It wasn’t much, which meant that someone – probably her – would have to go grocery shopping soon.

“Alana,” Elena said in a stern voice.

“Elena,” Alana said back in the same tone. She pulled out some onions and green peppers, having spotted some ground beef. Spaghetti had always been her favorite to make.

Alana moved to put the ingredients on the island but Elena stepped into her way.

“Jeez El, don’t have a cow. I was just running some errands,” Alana told her as she stepped around her sister. “I don’t know how you guys have been surviving without me.” Alana moved to the cabinets in search of the pasta, spotting some bread in the process. She pulled it out with garlic bread on the mind.

“We’ve barely been hanging on,” Elena said dryly as she began pulling out seasonings and the jar of tomato sauce. “Do you need any help?”

“Err, you can, um, cut up that stuff,” Alana said waving at the green pepper and onion. Elena moved to the outside of the island to do just that.

“So what’re you thinking about this time,” Elena asked after a moment of silence.

“Nothing really,” Alana told her vaguely. “Since I’m the only cook in the house, I’m obviously going to have to make every meal.” It was a half lie, but Alana didn’t think Elena needed to know just yet. She wanted to get every piece of information out of Damon that she could – which wasn’t much at the moment.

She had gotten most of the information about the tomb vampires. Like how Bonnie’s grams died trying to open the tomb and how there was a council of vampire hunters made up of the oldest families in town. And how the council tried to round up all of the tomb vampires to kill them. And also how Mayor Lockwood got mistaken for a vampire and was killed along with them. It was the last piece of information that made Alana feel the most uncomfortable. Damon couldn’t have cared less, given the nonchalant tone he had used when telling her that the Mayor was dead, but it had left a rock forming in Alana’s stomach. Even now she could feel it bumping along inside of her like a constant reminder, but she was determined to push it back.

She had gotten a lot of information today, but it wasn’t everything. Jeremy had mentioned that Damon had been involved in a lot of activities but Damon wasn’t giving away anything. Then again, Alana supposed that was something she’d have to get from someone else.

“Hey, El,” Alana called softly. Elena turned to look at her from where she had been dumping the chopped ingredients into the pot with the browning meat. Alana moved over to give the mixture a stir then began adding the seasonings.

“Jeremy mentioned something about tomb vampires and Damon being involved but he wouldn’t tell me much.”

“Oh,” Elena said lowly and Alana glanced over at her face to see her staring out at the window.

“Are you going to tell me what he meant,” Alana probed when Elena didn’t say anything. Elena let out a sigh before turning to look Alana in the face.

“Damon was in love with Katherine and he believed she loved him. He wanted to set her free. Only she was never in the tomb.”

“Which means that she had probably never loved him at all or else she would have come for him,” Alana finished with a shake of her head as she started on the pasta.

“Yeah.”

“What is that chick’s problem,” Alana asked out loud.

“Don’t know, although she did say that it was her job as a doppelganger to make her double’s life a living hell.”

“Well, that sucks for us,” Alana commented dryly. And Elena hummed in agreement. 

* * *

“So you were in love with Katherine.”

Damon groaned lowly, rolling off the couch and moving over to the decanter to pour himself a drink.

“Don’t you have school to be at,” he demanded after taking a long drink.

“I’m skipping,” Alana told him with an arched brow. “So Katherine?”

“Since you’re asking I think you already know the answer,” Damon said sullenly. “And tell Elena she has a big mouth.”

“How do you know Elena told me,” Alana shot at him.

“Because only Elena would tell you,” Damon shot back.

Alana smiled cheekily at him before moving forward and taking his drink out of his hand and downing it.

“Well, I guess we all know who the annoying twin is.”

“Oh you’re not all likable either,” Alana told him as she refilled the glass, only to have it snatched out of her hand.

“So the whole tomb vampire fiasco was mostly your fault,” Alana asked but she received no answer. Not that she had been expecting one. “But that doesn’t explain how Klaus came to find out about El.”

More silence from Damon.

“Oh come on! Wounded doesn’t suit you.”

“I feel like I should get some kind of compensation for having to deal with you,” Damon finally said, glaring at her.

“Oh, I’m not that bad to be around,” Alana told him. “If I was you would have kicked me out already.”

“Don’t tempt me.”

Alana rolled her eyes at him. “And here I thought you were the fun brother. I guess that doesn’t apply to you anymore.” She faked a sigh and turned to leave the house. Damon zoomed in front of her, his eyes narrowed.

“What’s that supposed to mean. Of course I’m fun.”

“You sure aren’t acting like it,” Alana pointed out. Damon posed a thoughtful look before grabbing Alana’s arm and dragging her back into the living room.

“I’ll show you how fun I can be,” he said then zoomed away. Moments later Alana could hear the loud booming of rock music spilling through the house. 

* * *

“Hey Jer,” Alana sang as she thrust opened the door to her little brother’s room. She halted just on the inside of the threshold, however, when she saw Jeremy jump up from his bed with a guilty expression.

“Um, what’s going on,” she asked slowly, looking around the room.

“N-nothing,” Jeremy stuttered. Alana eyed him suspiciously before a disgusted look came onto her face.

“Ew, gross! Were you masturbating?”

The look on Jeremy’s face said it all. Alana collapsed into a fit of giggles, holding onto the doorframe for support.

“No! I wasn’t,” Jeremy protested and his face was dark red.

“You so were weren’t you! Jeez, I’m sorry,” Alana said between giggles and she made a move as if to leave the room.

“Shut up,” Jeremy yelled, jumping forward and grabbing onto her. “I wasn’t doing anything.”

“Then why are you trying to stop me from leaving,” Alana asked.

“Because you’re just going to go downstairs and tell everyone that you caught me masturbating,” Jeremy growled.

“She caught you doing what.” The two looked over to see Elena staring at them with wide eyes before her nose wrinkled. “Eww, that’s disgusting Jeremy. I so didn’t need to know that.”

“But I wasn’t,” Jeremy shouted, turning impossibly redder.

“Whatever,” Elena said and turned to leave. Alana used the moment as a distraction to also leave and Jeremy chased after them. The twins ran into the kitchen, giggling madly.

“What did I miss,” Alaric asked, looking up from where he was setting the table.

“Jeremy jacking off,” Alana blurted as Jeremy slid into the kitchen.

“I wasn’t doing anything! Don’t listen to them,” he shouted, but the look on Alaric face wasn’t very comforting.

“Well dinners ready, but I’d suggest you wash your hands first,” the man said and Jeremy moaned in embarrassment. 

* * *

When Alana arrived at the Salvatore boarding house there was already music spilling from out of the open front door. Alana sighed, resigning herself to the fact that she wasn’t going to get much out of Damon today either. She had thought that if she could get him into a playful mood he would be more willing to tell her things but it turned out that he was more guarded when he was having fun.

“Are you ready to party,” Damon shouted at her when she walked into the living room. He darted over to her in one of his vampire fast moves and placed a large cup of scotch in her hand. “You aren’t allowed to talk until you drink all of that.”

Alana eyed the cup which was almost filled to the top. There was no way she could drink all that without getting alcohol poisoning. But Damon was looking at her challenging and so she started drinking.

By the time she was done the room was tilting a little and everything was a little fuzzy around the edges.

“Having fun yet,” Damon asked as he spun around her.

“Fine, I was wrong,” Alana shouted over the music. “You are the fun one. Now will you please tell me what I want to know?” And she poked out her bottom lip and batted her eyes at him. Damon took in her puppy dog expression before grabbing her arms.

“Dance with me and I’ll tell you.”

Alana’s eyes lit up and she put her cup down before lifting her arms to Damon’s shoulders. The music was still overly loud and booming, but they moved in a slow circle around the room. And while they danced Damon told Alana all about how Katherine turned back up in town and turned Caroline. About how Mason Lockwood came back to town and started outing all the vampires to the Council. And it turned out that Mason was also in love with Katherine and was trying to get the moonstone for her so that she could hand it over to Klaus. Which meant that he had to be killed. Damon even told Alana about Caroline’s dad showing up and how Katherine forced Tyler Lockwood to trigger his werewolf transformation.

And just when Alana thought he would tell her more, Damon let her go and walked away to refill his drink.

“That’s not everything,” Alana said in an accusing tone. “You still haven’t explained how Klaus found out about Elena. Katherine couldn’t have told him if she was so afraid of him.”

“You’re right,” Damon agreed but said no more. He left the room and came back with a mug of steaming coffee.

Most of the alcohol was started to leave Alana now, but she knew she’d have to drink something to get the rest out of her system before she went back home. That didn’t mean she was going to drink disgusting coffee.

“Uh, yuck. No thanks,” she said, pushing the mug away. “Do you have water or something?” Damon arched his brow curiously but left to get her a cup of water. “Thanks.”

“You don’t like coffee?”

“I don’t like bitter things,” Alana corrected before she chugged the water and then held out her cup for more.

“So quick to leave,” Damon pouted. Alana rolled her eyes at him.

“If you’re not going to tell me more, I might as well go home,” she told him and then glanced over at the window. She was surprised to see night had fallen. “And I have to make dinner anyways. Now are you going to let me drive home drunk?” She shook the cup at him until he took it away to be refilled.

“I’ll be back tomorrow for the rest,” Alana warned as she was leaving an hour later.

“And I’ll be here,” Damon told her mockingly. The music was still blasting and he was still drinking. Alana thought he looked a little lonely in the big house all by himself. But she got on her bike and drove away. 

* * *

“Why are you spending all this time with Damon,” Elena asked as she walked into the bathroom where Alana was brushing her teeth.

Alana spat the suds out of her mouth before answering. “I’m just trying to get the whole story on what’s been happening. It’s not exactly easy.”

“And you couldn’t have asked me?”

Alana arched a brow and locked eyes with Elena in the mirror.

“Honestly, I don’t think you would have told me everything. You like to keep people sheltered.” Elena opened her mouth to argue but Alana cut her off. “And besides, you have evil ex-boyfriend issues.”

Alana went back to brushing her teeth and when she was done she turned around to see Elena watching her with a pensive expression.

“Don’t worry so much. Damon isn’t that much of a nuisance.”

“Well not anymore he isn’t,” Elena agreed.

“Exactly. I can handle myself. You can’t be the only one allowed to hang with vampires.” That served to get a laugh from Elena. Alana smiled and guided her sister out of the bathroom.

As they got ready for bed Elena asked, “Are you coming to school tomorrow?”

“Nope, I’ve still got some more to get out of Damon,” Alana answered.

“Okay, but I really don’t think it’s a good idea to miss the entire first week of school.”

“Chill El, I’m smart enough to graduate.” And with that said, Alana rolled over and clicked off the bedside lamp. “Night El.”

“Night Al.” 

* * *

“I’m not leaving until I get everything today,” Alana shouted over the music when she cornered Damon in the kitchen. The vampire was fixing himself some kind of mixed drink. Alana wondered if he ever stopped drinking.

“Whatever you say Clone,” Damon said before pushing a glass into her hand. “But the same conditions as yesterday.” Alana eyed the drink skeptically.

“Wh —”

“Ah, ah,” Damon cut her off. “No talking until it’s all gone.” And then he strutted out of the room. Alana glared at the glass before taking an experimental sip. Surprise flashed across her face as a fruity taste splashed over her tongue. She rolled her eyes.

 _Of course_ Damon Salvatore knew how to mix a drink.

Damon was dancing like he was at a rave when Alana walked into the room, her drink half empty. She wasn’t that concerned about drinking it today. There couldn’t possibly be a lot of alcohol in it if it tasted like Hi-C.

Alana settled onto the couch and continued sipping her drink as she watched Damon act like a fool. She followed him with her eyes, allowing herself to appreciate this exquisite male specimen for just this once. After all, Damon was damned hot and she would have to be dead if she didn’t think so.

Damon grabbed Alana, pulling her up from off the couch as soon as she had finished her drink. He pulled her flush against his body and spun her dizzily around the room. Alana grabbed onto his shoulders and tucked her head into his chest so that she wouldn’t lose her balance.

“Are you ready,” Damon asked her.

“For what,” Alana demanded. Unexpectedly, Damon spun her out and then in as if they were doing the tango. Alana felt like her heart had jumped out of her throat and it didn’t help that Damon was laughing like a maniac.

“You are so stupid,” Alana shouted, beating at his chest when he let her go.

“Oh, admit it. It was fun.”

Alana glared at him and gave him the finger before stalking back over to the couch. She crossed her arms firmly over her chest.

“I didn’t come here to play your stupid games. Now just tell me what I want to know.”

“Aww, now who’s being a spoil sport,” Damon teased. He easily pulled Alana back up and draped his arm over her shoulders like they were the best of friends. “Now has it occurred to you that if you play my games I might just tell you everything?”

Alana gritted her teeth and prayed for patience. Damon was holding out another drink and smirking at her challengingly.

“You’re on,” Alana told him and snatched the drink up.

Damon kept his end of the bargain. When Alana finished her drink, he grabbed her hand and spun her lazily around the room. And just like the other day he told her everything. And Alana knew that this was the rest of the story.

She heard about how Elena got kidnapped by some vampires wanting to bargain with Klaus. And these vampires were the same ones that had known Katherine when she had been human. It was these vampires – Rose and Trevor – that had alerted Klaus to Elena’s existence.

Well actually they managed to tell Elijah, Klaus’s brother. Damon then told Alana about how Elijah wanted to get rid of Klaus and how they had teamed up to trick Klaus. But Klaus had been one step ahead of them.

And this was when Alana learned about what had happened to Aunt Jenna. How Klaus had turned her to use her in his stupid ritual to break his curse. And how Uncle John – or Daddy John – had tied his life to Elena to keep her alive through the ritual. And how Stefan gave up his freedom for Elena.

Damon paused there, setting Alana back onto the couch and going to make another drink.

Alana’s mind was whirling with the news. Hearing about Aunt Jenna’s death and John’s sacrifice was almost mind blowing. Especially coming from Damon who didn’t seem to care all that much about who he hurt.

“We spent most of the summer looking for Stefan,” Damon said when he came back into the room. He handed Alana the drink, which she took gratefully. “But we couldn’t do much since we wanted Klaus to think Elena was dead. But he knew a witch and he found out and they came back. And the rest is history.”

“I’ll say,” Alana muttered and she tilted her head back. She was a little bit surprised to see the ceiling shifting above her and she turned to look suspiciously at Damon. “What did you mix this drink with?”

“Hmm, well the first one was half vodka, the second had half tequila, and that one you just drank was mostly whiskey.”

“Oh god,” Alana moaned as her head spun dizzily. “You’re trying to kill me.”

“Not at all,” Damon said in a chipper voice. “Come on, I love this song.” He grabbed Alana up for another one of his crazy dance sessions.


	5. Ghost World

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One ghost, two ghost, three ghost, four!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So . . . we're gonna be right in the middle of the show now. I will apologize now if anyone is annoyed. But I just can't have Alana change things right off the bat. It won't be for too long, just major plot points. And I'll try not reuse too much.

_Why can’t you ever see?_

_What’s in front of you?_

_You might say I’m heavy handed_

_I can’t say I understand it_

_The Quiet Kind – In Front Of You_

_September 12, 2010 – Mystic Falls: Salvatore Boarding House_

 

Alana groaned lowly, twisting away from the rays of unforgiving sunlight that was hitting her in the face. Despite the fact that her eyes were closed, she could feel the natural light burning into her retinas. This annoyingly bright light was also doing nothing to help ease the harsh pounding in her head – a pain that was literally vibrating throughout her entire body to make it feel like one big ache.

Hangovers were a bitch.

Alana groaned again, this time flipping over to get away from the sun that seemed determined to make her morning a miserable one. She wished she hadn’t moved a moment later when she was dumped unceremonially onto the floor.

Her head cracked against the hard wood and she cursed venomously, clutching at her bruised cranium.

For a couple of minutes, all she could do was curl up into a ball and grit her teeth against the sharp pain.

This certainly was not turning into a very good morning for her.

Slowly the pain ebbed away although the throbbing from her hangover stubbornly remained. That, however, she could actually deal with.

Heaving a deep sigh, Alana laid flat on her back and stared up at the yawning ceiling that stretched out above her.

It was all thick dark wood molding with large cream colored squares interrupted only by a hanging chandelier that would likely be found in an expensive hotel.

Alana blinked slowly, confusion seeping into her cottony mind. She sat up slowly on her knees pushing back her knotted hair and blowing away the strands that fluttered into her eyes so that she could look about her better.

Slowly her sluggish mind took in the room’s décor.

The walls were all bare dark glossy wood and so was the floor. A lone full-length mirror was propped up against the back wall, reflecting a small portion of the room back. There was a king-sized bed sitting at an angle beside her with a large rug tucked neatly underneath it. Two stacks of books were piled haphazardly on the floor near the bedside table with its lone lamp. A couple of intricate wall chandeliers dotted the walls here and there with a touch of elegance. Most of the left wall was made up of door-sized glass windows and these were covered in large drapes that were left halfway open to let in the sunlight. There was also a cushy leather chair and a matching ottoman placed in a small corner that marked off the sitting area. Sitting up a little more, Alana looked over the bed to see that it was angled toward the bathroom – which was marked only by the tiled floor and the lighter color of it. There was no door.

It took a few seconds for her to register the fact that this was definitely not her room. It was too large, too dark, and too masculine.

“Where the _hell_ am I,” she wondered with slight panic. Her voice came out too loud, echoing around the room and then hitting her like a ten-ton brick.

Alana winced and gripped at her head, dropping back down until she was seated fully on the floor once more.

“Ugh, _god_ ,” she moaned in a quieter voice this time. “I need a Tylenol.”

Whimpering slightly, Alana crawled her way across the room and over to the shockingly normal sized door. Once there she got slowly to her feet, hugging the frame for help. It took her a few tries to get the door open, and when she finally did she stepped out into the hallways with a sigh of relief.

It was nice and dark in the hallway, the window at the far end was small and tinted.

Alana walked slowly down the hall, gazing about in wonder as she tried to remember everything that had happened last night that had led to her sleeping in a stranger’s bed – she wasn’t slutty in the slightest and so she knew this couldn’t be a one night stand.

It was slowly coming back to her in bits and pieces – the begging, Damon, alcohol . . . lots and lots of alcohol. There might even have been some dancing at one point.

Sighing, Alana thought back over her week. The bomb Elena had dropped on her had greatly unhinged her and she had wanted – _needed_ to know everything and not just the condensed version. Slowly but surely she had gotten every piece of information out of Damon.

Alana was just the slightest bit irritated that it had taken _four days_ for Damon to tell her everything, but after spending so much time with him, she was quickly learning that with Damon, nothing came easily. The man was sarcastic, annoying, patronizing, and at times a bit unbalanced. After hearing things from his point of view Alana could see that he had a bit of a Machiavellian attitude – all the cunning plans shrouded in sarcastic quips. Even after a week she had only scratched the surface of Damon Salvatore – but then again her goal hadn’t been to figure him out.

Yet.

Alana was halfway down the stairs when she heard the pained yell. She rushed down the rest of the way, her feet pounding against the floor in a way that vibrated pain throughout her body. But she pushed aside her discomfort for a moment. She dashed into the living room and jolted to a halt, staring with her mouth hanging open.

There sat Damon, chained to a chair, yelling and grunting in pain while the sun literally roasted the skin off his sexy body.

Shaking the shock off, Alana raced forward and tugged the heavy drapes closed. They did so with a little bit of a fight.

Alana then turned and walked cautiously over to Damon, taking in the burned skin that was quickly healing right before her eyes. He was dressed in the same clothes from last night so Alana could only assume he’d been tied up like this since then – only now there was a bloodstained hole in the center of his chest.

“Are you gonna just sit there looking pretty or are you gonna help me out of this,” Damon grunted, snapping Alana from her daze. Her eyes traveled from his bloody chest to his face which was tight with pain.

“Aren’t you supposed to be ridiculously strong or something,” Alana asked with a raised brow, recalling all the things he had told her about vampires.

“Yeah, well I wouldn’t be in this mess if I could help it,” Damon shot back and he proved this by straining against the thick chain wrapped around his chest. His voice still sounded a little tense and his head was tilted back as he breathed heavily.

Alana couldn’t help but lick her lips at the slightly erotic sight.

Hey, she was only human . . . kinda.

Sighing longingly and shaking the lustful thoughts from her mind, Alana crouched down and started untying the restraints around Damon’s wrists. She managed to untie one side, the other sliding off on its own, before the throbbing in her head got to be too much for her. It was like a heavy pulse was beating behind her eyes.

Sitting back fully, Alana propped her head on her knees and rubbed small circles into her temples. She could feel Damon’s eyes on her and she wondered if he was going to tell her to suck it up and finish unchaining him.

But it seemed like he didn’t need her help anymore because she heard the telltale sound of breaking chains. He then proceeded to drop the chains carelessly on the floor right beside Alana’s body.

The girl winced at the loud jangling sound and groaned internally.

“Lemme guess: hangover,” Damon asked from somewhere above her in an all too amused tone. Alana gritted her teeth but managed to move her head in a slight nod. She hoped he would offer her a painkiller, but she wasn’t holding her breath.

“Well, that sucks.”

“Fuck off,” Alana growled; looking up at him so that he could see her glare. She hated the smug and amused expression the vampire was currently holding and she wished more than ever that she could just punch him in the face again. It was always like this, a push and pull. One minute he was cooperative and the next he was snarky and aloof, and Alana was quickly getting tired of the flip-flop.

“Ah, ah, ah,” Damon sang, wagging his finger at her mockingly before bending over to pick up something silver from off the ground. “I’d be nice to me if I were you. After all, I know where the pain meds are.”

Alana moaned pitifully and bit back the sarcastic comment that was bubbling on her lips. Instead, she took a deep breath and pasted her best puppy dog look onto her face.

“Damon, can you _please_ help me,” she asked and she even batted her eyes.

Damon narrowed his incredible blue eyes at her, searching for something on her face, before what Alana had quickly learned was his signature smirk slipped back onto his face.

“Come along then,” he said and he held out his hand to help her to her feet. His hand was warm and his fingers were nice and long. Alana vaguely noticed the gaudy ring he was sporting and recalled him mentioning in one of their sessions earlier that week that there was a spell on it that protected vamps from burning in the sun.

Damon led her into a grand bathroom that followed the whole theme of dark wood that the house seemed to support. The counter top was speckled granite marble and the faucets were smooth chrome.

Alana hopped up onto the counter top, leaning her head back against the cool glass of the long mirror that stretched out to cover the two sinks and the immense counter space between them. She watched as Damon rummaged around for the pain medication, once again appreciating the leanness of his body and the sinewy muscle of his back.

“Here you are,” the vampire said after a moment of searching, and he dangled the bottle of aspirin in front of her face.

Alana snatched at the bottle, popping it open and shaking out two tiny white pills. She swallowed them down with a glass of water Damon handed her. Then she closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the mirror to wait for the medication to work its magic.

It was silent in the bathroom and Alana thought that maybe Damon had run off somewhere and left her alone to her own devices – that was what he usually did when she was distracted. But when she opened her eyes after a few minutes the dark-haired vampire was still there.

He was watching her closely with a peculiar expression on his angular face.

Alana stared back, tracing her eyes over his face – his smooth cheeks, the way his bangs fell casually into his eyes, the wicked curve of his mouth, and those blue, blue, blue eyes. She felt as if those eyes were staring right through her clothes.

“What,” Alana demanded when the staring started to make her feel naked and she resisted the urge to cross her arms protectively over her chest.

“You’re not like Elena.”

Although this was said plainly in a way that wasn’t meant to insult – which was a change from the norm – Alana couldn’t help but snort at him. And she even rolled her eyes.

“No shit Sherlock,” she muttered, her tone coming out a little bitter. “Here’s the news flash, pretty boy. Just because we’re twins doesn’t mean we’re the same person.” She winced a little then as the words and her tone echoed in her head. She hadn’t meant to sound like she might resent her sister, but that was just how some people seemed to take it.

“I’ll say,” Damon agreed readily. “Elena may be stubborn but she wouldn’t have skipped precious school just so she could get some information out of me, I’ll give you that. She also wouldn’t have punched me in the face.” Damon’s tone turned dry at the end. The vampire crossed his arms over his broad chest and leaned his hip against the edge of the counter.

A grin spread across Alana’s lips. Damon was obviously still a little sore about the punch but Alana was counting it as a victory. He choked her, she punched him. It was only fair.

“Naw, I don’t think she would have. If anything she probably would have gone for a slap.”

At these words Damon’s jaw clenched and Alana felt a little bit smug at guessing something right. She wondered when Elena slapped him. She would have liked to have been there to see that.

“So, I have to ask,” Alana said, changing the subject. She looked at him probingly, both eyebrows raised in question. “Why were you chained to a chair?”

“I’m not sure,” Damon admitted with a grimace and he rubbed vaguely at his chest. “But I’m going to find out.” Alana could tell that he was only being halfway truthful, but she decided not to call him out on it.

“Oo, ominous,” she drawled instead with a roll of her eyes and she received a quick smirk for her efforts.

“Anyways, I think you might want to run on back upstairs and look for the rest of your clothes,” Damon told her, running his eyes up and down her body slowly. He then locked eyes with her and wagged his brows suggestively. Alana shivered at the perusal but tried not to let it affect her. She already knew she was sitting there in her panties, but she had lived with a guy who wasn’t related to her for so long that the idea of being embarrassed didn’t even cross her mind. Besides, she was pretty sure Damon had seen his fair share of half-naked women.

Damon leaned into her, his lips inches from hers and their gazes still locked. Alana could feel the heat shimmering between their bodies.

“Unless, of course, you’re planning on making my morning a little better.”

Alana arched a brow speculatively and, in her mind, she played with the idea of giving Damon exactly what he wanted. She wasn’t a prude after all and he was damn hot. But then she thought of Elena and how her twin would feel about the situation giving the complexity of their relationship.

“Not a chance,” Alana whispered, her breath ghosting over his lips.

She smirked before pushing him away and then jumping down from the counter.

She could feel the burning heat of Damon’s eyes following her ass as she sauntered away, and she basked in the sense of empowerment the sensation gave her.

If Damon wanted this, he’d have to work for it. 

* * *

Alana rode into town with Damon. Not that she wanted to because that meant leaving behind her beautiful baby and she didn’t trust the Salvatore brothers one bit, but her bike was running low on gas and she liked the idea of being stranded on the road about as much as she liked to stick her hand into a fire.

Once Alana was in the car, she didn’t mind too much.

Damon drove exactly how Alana expected him to – reckless with too much speed and not a care for others on the road. She loved every minute of it. Riding in Damon’s 1969 Chevy Camaro Convertible with the top rolled down was a bit like riding her bike – just with wind blowing in her face. At one point she had been tempted to throw her hands up like she had seen girls do in the movies, but she thought that was a bit too clique and she didn’t feel like having Damon laugh at her.

They didn’t say a single word to each other during the entire ride. Alana was perfectly fine with that. She imagined that Damon might just be trying to figure her out – what with the mixed signals she had been sending him all week. One minute she’s punching him in the face and snapping at him and then next she’s teasing him seductively. And boy did Alana love the fact that she was confusing him.

That bathroom scene hadn’t been the first time they had flirted.

It felt good to know that she had him by the collar.

The Camaro came to a jolting halt at the side of the road and Alana was nearly thrown into the dashboard. She whipped her head around to glare at Damon, about to demand what his problem was when she saw Caroline and Bonnie setting up paper lanterns along the town square. It was the first time she had caught sight of them, given that she had been avoiding the school and all, and she was a little nervous about how their meeting would go.

“Greetings, Blondie. Witchy,” Damon was the one to greet them, a sullen look on his face. Alana sighed, crossing her arms over her chest and blowing her hair out of her face. She could see Caroline and Bonnie looking at her questioningly as they walked over to the car, but Damon commanded their full attention for the moment.

Alana looked around the town square, trying to see if she could find her twin in the crowds gathered about. She thought she caught a glimpse of Elena’s long hair. Looking over at Damon and seeing him currently busy, she gracefully jumped out of the car.

“I think you got your woodoo wires all crossed when you got rid of Vicki Donavan,” Damon was saying now.

“What do you mean? Why?” Bonnie asked suspiciously.

“Because I’m pretty sure I just got spit-roasted by Mason Lockwood’s ghost.”

“What,” Bonnie asked again, sounding incredulous now. Alana froze at the words and turned to look at Damon like he was crazy. Did he just say spit-roasted?

“And why would you think that,” Caroline asked, looking just as skeptical as Bonnie.

“Maybe because he chained me to a chair and shoved a hot poker in my chest,” Damon said with a sarcastic shrug. Caroline’s eyebrows rose and Alana couldn’t help the snort that bubbled up out of her mouth. Damon threw her a sharp glare before turning to face Bonnie.

“Let’s just say that I’m having déjà vu.”

“Some déjà vu,” Alana muttered but for all that it mattered, she could have been one of the lanterns swaying over their heads. She sighed and moved around the car so that she was standing near the sidewalk. She had a feeling that Damon wouldn’t think twice about running over her toes when he finally drove off.

“I thought you said that ghost couldn’t physically interact with people,” Caroline asked of Bonnie, her eyes narrowed in thought.

“They can’t,” Bonnie admitted, sounding just as surprised at this information as the rest of them did.

“Yeah, well. I don’t have time for vengeful Lockwood,” Damon interrupted. “When I kill someone, they’re supposed to stay dead.” He emphasized this with a sharp cutting motion of his hand. Bonnie and Caroline both stared at him silently.

“Whatever you screwed up, _fix it_.” And then Damon drove off with a squeal of his tires.

The three girls watched him go with mixed expressions.

Alana noticed Bonnie gazing across the street at Matt and wondered what that was all about before remembering that the witch had helped Matt send his bitchy sister away after she tried to fry Elena alive. When Alana had first found out it had been Vicki that almost got her twin killed she had wanted to summon the girl back just so she could kick her ass.

“Well that was cheerful,” Alana commented dryly, more to herself than anyone else. Bonnie and Caroline turned to face her anyways.

“I thought you were meeting Jeremy and Ric over near the stage,” Caroline asked, sounding just a smidge accusing. “What were you doing with Damon?”

Alana lifted one eyebrow smoothly at her interrogation.

“Um, well I was saving Damon from a vengeful ghost that had tied him to a chair and was roasting him alive,” she told her in a patient tone. The two girls blinked at her blankly.

“Why were you over there anyways,” Caroline spoke up again. “You’re avoiding Stefan, remember. And the last time I checked, he lived there.”

Realization hit Alana forcefully at these words.

They thought she was Elena.

Alana grimaced at the thought and pushed the bitter feeling aside. It should have been obvious; after all, these two hadn’t addressed her as Alana since the sixth grade.

“I think you have the wrong Gilbert,” she told them in a deadened voice. She sighed internally and resigned herself to hearing a million questions about where she had come from and stuff like that.

“Oh, Alana, I forgot. When did you get back into town?”

It was Alana’s turn to blink blankly. She certainly did not expect that question to come from Caroline’s mouth, but the girl’s face was open and inviting – as if she were a normal friend asking about her summer.

“Excuse me,” Alana sputtered.

“When did you get back into town,” Bonnie parroted back after sharing a look with Caroline.

“Hold up,” Alana muttered, holding up her hands as if she were warding something off. She let them drop to her side and then stared at the two girls standing before her. “Did I miss something here? The last time I check, you two had completely forgotten I existed.”

A rightfully guilty expression worked its way onto both girls’ faces.

“As much as I wish it wasn’t true, you’re right,” Bonnie said on a sigh, looking everywhere but at Alana’s face. “Once my magic came in, I just started remembering all these stuff about you so . . .” she trailed off awkwardly, waving her hand casually in the air.

“Yeah,” Caroline piped in like she was prone to do. “Like when I was turned everything got heightened including my memories and I can remember everything. Stuff from when I was in a crib too.”

Alana eyed the blonde warily. She didn’t sound nearly as apologetic as Bonnie, but that was Caroline for you. Sometimes she was all compassion and age-old wisdom and other times she was just a stuck up dumb bitch.

“The point is,” Bonnie rushed in to say, probably because she saw the irritation flash across Alana’s face. “We remember stuff about you and we’re extremely sorry that we kinda just pushed you to the side. I kind of wanted to know where you went but with everything going on it was kind of hard to bring up your disappearance. You know?”

“Yeah, Elena and Damon filled me in on all of it,” Alana muttered numbly. Just thinking about it had a sharp pang ringing through Alana’s chest. To think that she would never see Aunt Jenna again. She felt an overwhelming sense of guilt that she hadn’t been there for her

And Uncle John who was really Daddy John . . . Well, Alana didn’t even want to touch that subject. She still couldn’t quite believe that she was adopted and her real mother had been turned into a vampire and then did suicide-by-sunlight. It was enough to make anyone’s head spin.

A somber look made its way over Bonnie and Caroline’s faces, like they knew where her thoughts had traveled.

“Um, anyways, I’m supposed to be meeting El and Jer for lunch, so, I’ll see you guys around,” Alana said awkwardly before walking stiffly away.

It was a weird kind of sense for her to be suddenly remembered and missed. 

* * *

Alana was walking toward Mystic Grill, where she spotted Elena and Jeremy seated outside with Alaric, when her attention was suddenly grabbed by the sight of Tyler Lockwood.

A smile began to spread across her face and she was about to lift her hand to wave when Tyler walked right past her without so much as a glance in her direction.

Alana’s heart dropped, a scowl replacing her smile.

If there was one person she had thought would be happy to see her outside of her family, it had been Tyler. But clearly that wasn’t the case.

It was like out of sight, out of mind.

Sighing, Alana started heading for the Grill again when she felt a large hand wrap around her forearm. Tensing up slightly, Alana turned to see the owner of the hand.

And there was Tyler again, only this time he was looking at her with pleased shock.

“Alana,” he asked, looking her up and down. She was still in her clothes from yesterday, her favorite pair of shorts and a black tank top with a skull on it.

“Hey,” Tyler breathed and then jerked at her arm so that she fell into him. He then wrapped her up in a tight hug, her face pressed into his broad chest. Alana breathed in the familiar smell of him – wood and soap and something new that was slightly rusty. It took Alana a second to realize that it might just be blood.

“I almost mistook you for Elena,” Tyler said in an apologetic tone. He knew how she felt about being mistaken for Elena.

“I could tell,” Alana said dryly, pulling back so that she could look at him closely.

Tyler hadn’t changed a single bit since Alana had last seen him – well except the whole being a werewolf-vampire hybrid thing.

“Walk with me,” Tyler asked and Alana readily agreed.

As they walked slowly around the square, Alana couldn’t help but bask in the familiarity of the moment.

Tyler was her best, and mostly only, friend and she had felt guilty about leaving town without telling him first. They had stuck together through most of their lives. Tyler had been the only constant friend Alana had and he had been the only one that had stuck with her through all the changes.

They shared secrets and hung out and Alana knew Tyler inside out. She knew everything there was to know about him: his hopes, his dreams, his fears, his goals, his thoughts about his family, his anger at his father, and even the ins and outs of all his messed up relationships.

If Alana was pressed to compare it, she'd say that their relationship was a bit like Matt and Elena’s but without the awkwardness of one of them falling in love with the other. In fact, Alana didn’t think it was too much of a stretch to say that they were kind of like siblings.

“So why are you avoiding Elena,” Alana asked after a comfortable silence.

“It’s more like she’s avoiding me, what with the whole being sired thing,” Tyler admitted a little bitterly. Alana blinked at the unfamiliar phrase and Tyler glanced at her in concern. He stopped suddenly, grabbing her arm to stop her also.

“You do know about what’s been going on, right,” he asked sounding a little nervous. Alana smiled to reassure him.

“Yeah. Elena gave me the whole spiel when I got back.”

Tyler nodded, looking a little relieved and they continued walking again.

“So how is it,” Alana asked suddenly and at Tyler’s questioning look she added, “Being a vampire-werewolf hybrid?”

“Well,” Tyler started, a thoughtful look appearing on his face. “I wasn’t sure how to feel about it at first. I mean, I did the whole werewolf deal and that hadn’t been pleasant at all.”

At Alana’s questioning expression he expanded.

“When I was a werewolf the moon controlled me. Every time I transformed it was the most painful thing in the world. Every bone in my body would snap and then rearrange itself, over and over and over again. It was – excruciating.”

Alana winced sympathetically, watching Tyler’s face closely. Elena had mentioned vaguely that Tyler had been sired and as a result was loyal to Klaus, which was a problem for them. But Alana wanted to hear firsthand from Tyler how he was dealing with all of this. She honestly couldn’t see why Tyler being sired was a problem, but maybe that was because she _knew_ Tyler.

“And being a hybrid makes all of that better,” Alana asked skeptically when Tyler seemed to trail off into thought.

“Well, yeah. Now I can transform if I want to, which I don’t. Klaus had basically given me my freedom. I don’t _have_ to go through that kind of pain anymore.”

“Well that’s good,” Alana said with a small nod and Tyler smiled in her direction.

“I’m glad you feel that way. Right now you’re the only one who’s looking at this from my perspective. Everyone else just kind of assumes that I’ll get them killed or something.”

“Caroline included,” Alana asked slyly, knocking shoulders with Tyler when he ducked his head bashfully.

“Caroline kind of understands but I can tell she doesn’t trust me. But I’m working on it.”

Alana laughed at that and shook her head.

“You know, I never thought I’d see the day when you and Caroline would get together. But here it is.”

“Well, she’s sort of awesome,” Tyler admitted a little reverently. He glanced sideways at Alana to see her expression but she was just looking at him happily.

“Well, I’m glad you have someone that can handle your dick-ish ways.”

Tyler shoved Alana playfully in the shoulder.

They walked on in silence for a moment longer, Alana contemplating over whether or not she should bring up something that had been weighing on her. After a while, Tyler let out a loud sigh and shook his head.

“Geez, Lana. Why don’t you just spit it out? I think your brain might explode if you keep thinking that hard.”

Alana let out a hollow laugh, chewing over the words before finally spitting them out.

“I heard about your father.”

Tyler jolted to a halt and Alana was almost afraid to look at him. She dropped her gaze to her hands where her fingers were twisting nervously.

“I know you guys never had the best relationship – hell the guy was a dick ninety percent of the time. But it had to have been hard. Losing him that way and not knowing why. I’m sorry I wasn’t here for you like you had been for me.”

Tyler let out a long sigh before he threw his arm around Alana’s shoulder and drew her into a tight hug. He was taller than he had been a year ago and he now had to bend down a little bit to bury his face into Alana’s neck. She wrapped her arms around his broad shoulders, pulling him in a tightly as she could.

“It’s not your fault,” he said after a long time. “I’m just glad you’re here now.”

Alana swallowed thickly, running her fingers through Tyler’s thick hair. They stood like that for a long moment, Alana giving Tyler the comfort he had been secretly craving since his dad’s death. Finally he pulled back and gave her a smile that was only a little wobbly around the edges.

Now that the tense and serious parts were out of the way the two were free to talk about everything else under the sun. As they continued walking around the square they filled each other in on the things in their lives. Alana told him all about New York and her job and her roommate and about how she came to live with Blade. Tyler had been rightfully worried about her and it had made Alana feel all warm inside. Alana even told him about some of her confusion about the situation she had been briefed on. Tyler had been quick to defend Klaus, but Alana kept her opinions to herself. Anyone who killed and threatened her family was bad in her books.

And Tyler told her all the things she already knew about his situation, only it included how he had felt going through all of it. He talked about Caroline a lot, mentioning the way she had helped him and talking about how he had come to love her. Alana looked skeptical about the relationship, but even she could see that Caroline made Tyler happy. Tyler even talked about Jules and how she had helped him come to terms with being a werewolf.

And they even had a good laugh when she told him about what Mason’s ghost had done to Damon that morning. When they ran out of things to say, they simply walked around the square in silence. It was kind of like the old days. 

* * *

Elena was practically seething, her mind replaying the scene she had just walked in on. It didn’t help that Jeremy didn’t look the least bit guilty, or that Anna had actually stuck around after Elena had caught them making out.

Elena glared angrily at Jeremy, her Samsung pressed to her ear as Caroline filled her in on the whole ghost situation. Apparently all the ghost that had hung around town because of unfinished business were now able to physically interact with them – as proven by Mason coming back and skewering Damon.

“According to Ms. Sheila, when Bonnie brought Jeremy back, a door from there to here was cracked open. It was the Original Witch that was helping Vicki and when she was sent back the Original Witch was able to push the door wide open. Now we have to shut the door to the spirit world or whatever,” Caroline was explaining over the line.

“How do we do that,” Elena demanded and she saw the concerned look that flashed across Jeremy’s face as he looked at ghost-Anna. Elena’s hand tightened around her phone.

“Apparently the Old Witch can draw power from this side because of her talisman.”

“Talisman,” Elena repeated, the word sparking a memory in her mind. She heard the door to the bathroom fly open and turned to see who it was. Her shoulders relaxed when she saw that it was just Alana and she pressed her index finger to her mouth to silence her sister.

“My necklace?”

“It’s some - juju power source,” Caroline said and Elena could practically see Caroline waving her hand around as she talked about magic. “And I know you’re not going to like this, but Bonnie needs to destroy it.”

Elena turned back to face Jeremy and Anna and, while normally she wouldn’t have liked the idea of destroying the one thing that was a reminder of the other Stefan, her resolve tightened.

“I just walked in on Jeremy kissing the reason why I’m completely okay with that,” she told Caroline in a tight voice. Jeremy extended his arms with a startled ‘Seriously?’ look on his face.

“What? Are you kidding?”

“I wish,” Elena muttered and then sighed. “Look, I don’t have the necklace. Damon has it somewhere. Text him. I’ll call you back.”

Elena hung up the phone.

“Uh, what’s going on,” Alana asked once Elena had slipped her phone back into her pocket. She was looking from Elena’s glare to Jeremy’s slight panic/guilty expression to Anna standing there looked scared.

“I’ll fill you in later,” Elena muttered before focusing all of her attention on the Jeremy and Anna situation. She knew her twin wasn’t happy at being brushed aside but this was slightly more important.

“Elena,” Jeremy started in a placating tone. But he was ignored for the moment.

“You need to disappear, or evaporate, or whatever it is that you ghosts do,” Elena cut in with a steely tone, pointing threateningly at Anna.

“Hey, it’s not her fault,” Jeremy jumped in. Protecting Anna. Why was he protecting _Anna_?

“You’re right,” Elena agreed, turning her anger at the situation on him. “It’s yours.” She would have continued on this strain if Anna didn’t just kind of . . . blink out of existence.

“Freaky,” Alana mumbled, staring at where Anna had been standing with wide eyes.

“How did this happen,” Elena demanded of Jeremy.

“I don’t know, _okay_ ,” the young teen admitted with a sigh in typical male fashion. “I don’t know. It just – it did.” He stared from Elena to Alana before looking at the younger twin with a pleading expression.

“Elena, please.” He pushed away from the sink he had been leaning against and walked a little closer to her. “You can’t tell Bonnie.” His expression was unnaturally serious.

Elena sighed and shook her head in disgust. She honestly couldn’t believe that Jeremy was doing this. It was just so . . . so messed up.

“Don’t worry. I’m going to let you do that,” Elena finally said. “Right after I help her send the ghosts _away_.”

She looked at him once more before turning away. She made sure to grab a hold of Alana before she stormed out.

“So, now we have a ghost problem,” Alana asked as she followed her sister out of the bathroom. Elena sighed heavily, stopping shortly so that she could look at her older sister.

Alana was still dressed in the clothes from the day before – a pair of frayed jean shorts and a tank top with a grinning skull on it – stating that she hadn’t had time to make it to the house. Even her hair was a little tangled, like she had just shoved it into its ponytail.

She looked a little happy, Elena noted. Happier than Elena had expected considering everything going on.

“How are you handling all of this Al,” Elena asked softly, her eyes trailing over Alana’s face. Alana heaved a sigh that seemed to make her entire body sag a little before fixing a smile onto her face.

“I’m dealing,” she said. She lifted her hand, waving it around over her head. “It’s all crazy and completely surreal, but I’m dealing.”

“Day by day,” Elena told her with a sarcastic smile. It was a little thing they used to say to each other when the future looked impossible, but that had been back before their parents had even died. Back when the most threatening thing had been a sprained ankle from Spirit Squad practice or a failing grade in Chemistry.

Elena shook her head and then sighed softly.

“Come on, we need to find Damon.”

“Off to retrieve the necklace, the magical necklace of doom,” Alana sang in a slightly slow version of the tune from the Wizard of Oz.

The two turned to walk out of the Grill when their path was blocked by none other than Lexi, the vampire Elena was just wishing for – before the whole ghost thing had gone belly up.

“Looks like today was a good day to be thinking about me, Elena,” the blonde vampire said in a no-nonsense tone. Her eyes drifted between the two twins before they settled on Elena.

“Lexi,” Elena asked in astonishment.

“Yup. Come with me,” Lexi said in an urgent tone.

“Where?”

“Ripper-detox 101,” Lexi said as if it should be obvious. “Crash course.” She grabbed Elena’s wrist and tried to drag her away but Elena jerked back. Lexi turned to look at her incredulously, taking in her reluctant expression.

“Ah, I’m sorry,” she said sarcastically. “Did you _not_ just say how desperate you were for my help in saving Stefan’s life?”

Elena hesitated, turning to look behind her and thinking about the whole Jeremy/Anna situation. She then locked eyes with Alana who shrugged as if to say ‘Hey this is your call.’

Thinking about Stefan and his recent downward spiral to hell, she made her choice quickly.

“Let’s go,” she told Lexi and then they were running off, Alana trailing after them since she seemed to have nothing better to do. 

* * *

Alana sighed and slipped out of the weird dungeon-like jail cell, closing the door behind her. She could still hear Stefan growling at Lexi.

Alana had been a bit amused at first, she had known Stefan for a total of six days and all she had seen was that he was a little bastard with a cocky attitude and an annoying habit of mocking everyone around him. So when she had figured out what Lexi the vampire ghost was going to do, she had stuck around to watch.

And it had been nice to see psycho vamp Stefan suffer a little, but it had quickly gotten boring after thirty minutes of the same thing.

Besides, this was an Elena and Stefan thing and she honestly didn’t know Stefan well enough to care what happened to him. Or rather, she didn’t know the Stefan before he became this bipolar vampire bodyguard with a blood-addiction problem that bordered on rehab-crazy.

Alana started heading back out to civilization, walking around in circles while she tried to remember how she had gotten into this gloomy place in the first place – she supposed she really should have paid better attention when she had first followed Elena and Lexi into the deep recesses of the Mystic Falls Police Station. It was a little weird to know that there were vampire torture cells beneath the Police station, but just like everything else, Alana was quickly coming to terms with it.

Looking back now, Alana was a little amazed at how easily her perspective on the world had changed in only one week. She hadn’t even been fazed when she had entered the cellar and found Stefan chained to a chair. And to think that just that Monday she had been sitting in the office at school glaring daggers into the receptionist’s head and bemoaning about moving from hectic New York to good old Mystic Falls.

Finally finding the exit, Alana stepped out into the town square where dusk was settling around them, throwing brilliant beams of red and purple into the sky. Almost the entire town was starting to gather at the stage in wait for the Illumination Night to start. Alana looked over at them all, trying to see if anything looked different to her now.

But no, the town was still the familiar place she had grown up, and then run away from.

Shaking her head, Alana turned to walk toward the less crowded parts of town. She had no real destination in mind, just walking aimlessly and humming quietly to herself. She was thinking about the information she had gathered that week, organizing it in her mind so that she could remember it all better.

“Alana?”

Alana whirled around at the sound of the voice, wondering who it was that was calling out to her – because everyone that knew who she was were all currently occupied in their own ghost business.

There, standing a couple of feet away from her with a small smile on her pale face, was Aunt Jenna.

Alana stared at her, stunned into silence.

“Hey there kiddo, I thought I’d come back and see you one last time,” Jenna said, breaking the silence. The words jolted Alana into action and she was running into Aunt Jenna’s arms, hugging her tightly with tears streaming down her face.

It was funny how she was just thinking about her favorite, well _only_ technically, aunt and missing her and wishing she could see her one last time . . . and here she stood – dead but brought back in ghost form by Bonnie’s spell.

“I miss you so much, Aunt Jen,” Alana sobbed, pulling back so that she could look at her aunt’s face. Her eyes moved about the familiar features, drinking it in for the last time. “I’m so sorry that I ran off on you. I wish I hadn’t so I could have been there for you.”

“Ah, don’t worry about it,” Jenna told her with a sad little smile. She reached up and smoothed down Alana’s hair. “I’m actually kind of glad that you left town. I don’t think I could have handled three teens; I was barely able to handle two. Besides, if you had stayed you would have been in just as much danger as Elena.”

Alana let out a watery laugh, wiping at her tears with one hand while the other was still wrapped around Jenna’s waist.

“That’s kind of ruined now, isn’t it?”

“Well, nothing ever goes as planned.”

For a long moment, the two just stood there, holding each other and staring with small smiles on their faces.

Alana could see the forgiveness shining in Jenna’s hazel eyes and she soaked it in. She was relieved that she could see Jenna again, talk to her, just be with her. When she had found out that Jenna had died she had felt immensely guilty about her selfish action of leaving. Never before has she regretted her actions until then.

And although Jenna was right in that she would have been in danger if she had stayed, Alana didn’t really care all that much. She would have taken all the danger in the world to be there with Jenna on her last day.

The sudden sound of sirens captured Alana’s attention, and she turned to look over Jenna’s shoulder as the flashing blue and white lights of police cruisers lit up the air. Night had fallen quickly without her really noticing and the illumination had taken place – but the paper lanterns were all dimmed in the wake of the flaring police lights.

“Uh oh,” Alana muttered and started heading toward the town square. She jolted to a stop a second later and turned back to look at Jenna.

“Go on and satisfy your curiosity. It’s time for me to go anyways.”

Alana nodded, tears filling her eyes again as she hugged Jenna one last time.

“I’ll always miss you, Aunt Jen.”

“I’ll miss you too kid,” Jenna whispered back, and then she was gone.

Alana stared at the blank space for a moment before turning and walking off toward the chaos that was the town square. 

* * *

“Where is Anna now,” Elena was asking Jeremy as Alana walked up to them, looking around in clear confusion.

“I don’t know, okay,” was what left Jeremy’s mouth and Elena was quickly getting tired of him repeating that phrase. “I don’t even know for sure if she took the necklace.”

“She was the only person that heard us talking about it,” Elena pointed out. “Of course she took it.” Elena sighed, looking around nervously. She couldn’t see any of the tomb vampires and it was setting her on edge. Where were they?

“Okay, we have to get it back. We have to destroy it and then close the door.”

“I know but . . .” Jeremy trailed off, his face pinched.

“But what,” Elena asked, her eyes snapping back to his face.

“But what, Jer,” Alana echoed, also staring up at him with a penetrating look. Elena was immediately glad that Alana was there to back her up.

“I can touch her, guys,” Jeremy said and Elena tilted her head up as realization struck. She wanted so bad to be mad at Jeremy – for thinking about Anna and therefore conjuring her up, for pushing Bonnie away, for breaking her best friend’s heart – but it was hard to do when she saw how heartbroken Jeremy was over this.

“I can kiss her again. And I know it’s wrong and I-I know that I shouldn’t feel this way – but I do.” Jeremy shook his head. “I love her. I’ve always _loved_ her.”

Alana seemed to be struck dumb at Jeremy’s words and so Elena took it upon herself to do the big sister thing.

“But it’s not real,” she told Jeremy softly. “She’s dead. Gone. Everything that you’re holding on to is in the past, Jer. Are you going to love a ghost for the rest of your life?”

Jeremy’s face fell and Elena felt the tiniest bit guilty that she was doing this to him. But these words had to be said. Jeremy _had_ to move on.

A sudden flicker behind Jeremy caught Elena’s eye and she looked over her brother’s shoulder to see Anna’s figure. The other girl looked just as hangdog and heartbroken as Jeremy, but in this one instant, Elena’s empathy only stretched to her brother.

Jeremy turned around when he noticed Elena’s attention drift, and for a moment, a smile flitted across his face before dropping off when he took in Anna’s teary gaze.

“He’s at the beginning of his life Anna,” Elena found herself saying and she knew that Anna would understand. She was a vampire after all, and she had already lived. “You’re just holding him back.” Jeremy twisted his head to look at Elena, his expression torn, but Elena was still staring at Anna. “You _know_ that.”

And then, surprise, surprise, Anna lifted up her hand to reveal a very familiar necklace.

Elena swallowed down the smugness she was feeling, now was really not the time. “Call Bonnie,” she told Jeremy, trying not to notice his betrayed look. “Tell her that you have the necklace. Get her to send the ghost away.” Elena turned to walk away and then remembered that Alana was standing there also. She was still looking at Jeremy as if not sure what to say.

“Hey, you okay,” she asked, jolting Alana from her thoughts.

The older twin swallowed thickly before nodding.

“Yeah, I just – that was – a bit harsh, wasn’t it?”

Elena heaved a heavy sigh.

“I may have been projecting a little.”

Alana blinked a couple of times in confusion before nodding her head sagely and saying, “Ah, _good_ Stefan.”

“Yeah,” Elena said a little wistfully. Alana peered thoughtfully at her, those familiar brown eyes traveling around her face.

“Are _you_ okay,” Alana asked.

Elena thought on the question, turning it over in her mind for a bit before saying sadly, “Day by day.”

Alana’s lip twitched as if she wanted to smile but didn’t think it was appropriate.

“Why don’t you go back to the boyfriend and I’ll make sure Jeremy does what he’s supposed to,” Alana suggested and a relieved smile made its way onto Elena’s face.

Boy was she glad to have her sister back. 

* * *

Jeremy flopped heavily onto his bed, his arms going behind his head as he stared blankly up at the ceiling.

He felt kind of empty inside, like a piece of himself had been scooped out and tossed away.

He hadn’t felt this way since Aunt Jenna and Uncle John’s funerals.

Letting go of Anna had been like losing her all over again only more painful because he had had a taste of what it was like to be around her again. And it killed him inside to know that if he really, _really_ wanted to, he could still see her.

Jeremy sighed and turned over so that he was lying on his side. He stared at the clock on his bedside table, watching the numbers for so long that they blurred.

“Knock, knock.”

Glancing over toward the door, Jeremy took in Alana’s figure standing in his doorway. She had a sardonic smirk on her face and her arms were crossed over her chest.

“Mind if I come in,” she asked with an arched brow as if daring him to say something other than yes.

“Sure,” Jeremy said, sitting up on the bed and shifting back until his back was pressed against the headboard. Alana walked into the room, looking around like she had never seen it before, and then sat down at the end of the bed.

For a moment they were silent.

“I’m sorry about what happened tonight,” Alana finally said, looking up from where she had been fiddling with a piece of thread hanging from her shirt. “I know I didn’t know Anna or anything, but I know it had to have been hard to let her go.”

“I just -- I just miss her,” Jeremy admitted, his heart throbbing painfully in his chest. “I miss _all_ of them. It seems like just when everything is going good, I lose another person.”

Alana nodded and chewed thoughtfully on her bottom lip.

“Bonnie dumped you, huh?”

“Yeah.” Jeremy sighed, guilt now raging up inside of him. He never knew he could feel all these emotions at once. “I kind of expected it. I’ve been a real jackass to her. And she was right; I could control how often I saw Anna. But that’s all old news now.”

“Gee, glad to see you all hung up about it,” Alana remarked sarcastically and to that Jeremy could only just shrug.

“I do feel guilty and I did like Bonnie but - I don’t know. I guess I just never got over Anna so there wasn’t really a lot of -- love for me to give Bonnie,” he tried to explain, but by the end even he sounded a little confused.

“Yeah, whatever, I kind of get what you’re trying to say,” Alana told him before he could try explaining it more.

Another silence descended over them and Alana started fiddling with her shirt again. Jeremy had just opened his mouth to ask her what was on her mind when she told him anyways.

“I saw Aunt Jen today.”

Jeremy’s mouth dropped open and he blinked repeatedly, wondering if he heard her correctly.

“What,” he managed to choke out over the sudden lump in his throat.

“Yeah,” Alana muttered lowly, still playing with her shirt. “She said she came back to see me one last time.”

Jeremy snapped his mouth shut and his brows furrowed. He was a little stung that Jenna didn’t think to see him also, but he could kind of understand why she came back. Alana had been the only one missing on her last day after all.

“It was nice to see her,” Alana said and Jeremy noticed that she was crying now, silent tears streaming down her face. “I’m happy to know that she went on and she’s at peace or whatever.”

“Yeah,” Jeremy agreed and he moved forward, pulling Alana into his arms and tucking her head under his chin. He rubbed at her arms soothingly.

It was a little weird to be comforting her like this. Alana had always put on a strong front when he was around and it was usually her doing the comforting. He was just a little bit relieved that he could finally give back to her a little.

It was a while before Alana’s tears stopped, but still Jeremy held on to her. They didn’t move for such a long time that he nearly jumped out of his skin when he felt wandering fingers brush over his hand. Looking down Jeremy saw that Alana was playing with his ring.

“How does it work,” she asked softly, twirling her finger around the face of the ring.

Jeremy shrugged.

“I’m not sure. All I know is that it keeps me from dying.”

Alana pulled away from him, although she kept a hold of his hand, and she looked at him with furrowed brows.

“But Elena told me, and Damon later confirmed, that you had died – as in shot in the chest with wooden stakes and killed dead. They said Bonnie had to do her whole waving-a-magic-wand-and-poof-you’re-alive thing. That’s what started this ghost mess isn’t it?”

“Well yeah,” Jeremy agreed a little amused at the way Alana thought about Bonnie’s magic. “But that was because Sheriff Forbes shot me. The ring doesn’t work against humans.”

“Oh,” Alana intoned and then her nose wrinkled and she said, “That sucks.”

“Well seeing as it protects me from being killed by supernaturals, I think it’s a fair deal,” Jeremy shot back dryly.

Alana shrugged but agreed anyways.

“So - does it work against me and Elena also, seeing as we’re kind of supernaturals or whatever,” she asked softly, twirling her finger around the gem again. “Like, if I accidentally stab you with a knife will you come back to life?”

“I think so,” Jeremy said, blinking in alarm. “Although I really hope you don’t accidentally stab me with a knife. It’s not like the ring keeps me from feeling pain.”

Alana giggled then and let go of his hand.

“Aw, don’t worry Jer. If I ever do decide to kill you I’ll make sure it’s quick and painless.” She then patted him patronizingly on the head before skipping from the room, whistling tunelessly to herself.

Jeremy stared after her wondering when his sister had gotten so crazy.


	6. Ordinary People

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone has a story to tell.

_If this is redemption_

_Why do I bother at all?_

_There’s nothing to mention_

_And nothing has changed_

_James Vincent McMorrow – We Don’t Eat_

_September 14, 2010 – Mystic Falls: Lockwood Tunnels_

 

Alana nearly tripped over a rock trying to keep up with Elena and Alaric. As it was she was having a difficult time with stumbling into one of the walls, the palms of her hands scraping against the rock.

A snort drew her attention and she whirled around, the beam of her flashlight bouncing off the tunnel walls, but there was no one there.

“These tunnels are making you crazy,” Alana muttered to herself, shaking her head before moving forward to catch up with her twin and their semi-guardian. Her palms were stinging from where they had met the rock and her legs were aching dully from her impromptu training session with Elena earlier that morning.

It had been refreshing to do, especially seeing as Alana hadn’t worked out since she had left New York. But the training with Alaric was a little more intense than Alana was used to and the week of relaxation plus the new regimen had taken its toll on her body. She was a little annoyed that Elena wasn’t having as much trouble as she was and she wondered what her sister’s secret was. Maybe cheerleading was more strenuous than she had first assumed.

“Are we almost there yet,” Alana panted when she finally managed to catch up. These tunnels seemed to go on forever.

“We still have a ways to go,” Alaric called back to her and Alana grimaced.

“So the Lockwoods really have no idea that these tunnels are underneath their property,” Elena asked, waving her flashlight around to look into every nook and cranny.

Alana’s face twisted at how normal her twin sounded.

“Uh, yeah,” Alaric answered vaguely then said in a careless tone, “Careful where you shine that thing. Bats hate the light.”

Elena froze, her flashlight trained on Alaric’s back. Alana took the moment to lean against the wall and take a breather.

“Wait. What,” Elena demanded and Alana was pleased to hear the slight panic in her tone. She knew Alaric was only teasing Elena but it was funny to hear.

As if bats were really in a place like this.

Alaric paused and turned to look at Elena with an amused expression.

“Elena,” a voice whispered and she whipped her flashlight around and then nearly jumped out of her skin when the beam glanced over the still form of Damon Salvatore.

Alana had to admit that she would have jumped too if she hadn’t seen Damon’s shadow when he crept up behind Elena. As it was, she settled for enjoying the moment, clutching at her stomach as laughter bubbled out of her mouth.

“God, Damon,” Elena gasped, reaching out and punching him in the arm.

“Scaredy-cat,” Damon quipped with a smile.

“Just ignore him. It’s what I do,” Alaric advised even though he had clearly been in on the whole scare Elena plan.

Elena rolled her eyes and sighed.

“So you really can’t get in,” she asked, glaring at Alana who was still giggling a little.

“No,” Damon said with an annoyed expression. “Seems even the ancient Lockwoods were anti-vampire.”

“What do you mean ancient,” Alana asked as she stumbled toward them, struggling over the unsteady ground.

“See for yourself,” Damon said as a response and he waved them forward. Alana sighed at the fact that they still had more walking to do.

“Great,” she said under her breath. “This is exactly how I wanted to spend my morning. Walking around in a dingy tunnel on some stupid treasure hunt.”

“Hey, this treasure’s supposed to be saving your life,” Damon reprimanded mockingly and Alana glared at his back.

A few minutes later and the vampire stopped, saying, “Well this is as far as I get to go.” The trio moved past him into the large opening. As Alana walked by, she lifted her hand and patted Damon on the cheek.

“Aww, poor baby has to stay out here while the adults play,” she cooed and then slipped past the barrier before Damon could even think to grab a hold of her. She could feel the heat of his glare on her back, but she ignored it in favor of flashing her flashlight around the walls. It was covered in a bunch of chalky drawings in a fashion that made Alana think of cavemen.

“What is all this,” Elena asked in confusion as she looked around.

“Well, as far as I can tell, it’s a story. In simple archeological terms, it’s a really, really old story.” Alana snorted as Alaric waved his flashlight, focusing it on a picture of three crescent moons pointing in varying directions. One was shaded in completely, the one below it wasn’t, and the last one was shaded in halfway.

“That right there is the moon cycle.”

Another wave of the flashlight and a little stick figure popped into view. He was placed right under a terrifying image of some kind of beast. “A man. A wolf.”

“A werewolf,” Alana asked skeptically, her mind flashing to Tyler.

“Yeah it’s the ‘Lockwood Diaries: Pictionary-Style’,” Damon joked and Alana turned to see that he was now sitting on the ground, looking at them with a sullen expression. Alana stuck out her tongue and Damon flashed his fangs.

“I don’t understand,” Elena said, drawing Alana from her immature moment with Damon. “I-I thought the Lockwoods came here with the Original Founders in the 1860s.”

“I don’t know. Maybe the Lockwoods did, but according to this wall,” Alaric waved the flashlight to illuminate a bunch of pictures of people hunting with wolves or whatever on the walls above them, “these werewolves have been here a lot longer than that.”

“How long,” Alana and Elena asked at the same time. They shot each other a glance and grinned. It had been a long time since they had done twin speak.

“Long,” Damon piped in. “It gets better. Show them, Ric.”

Alaric walked over to a more secluded section of the cave and aimed the flashlight up, revealing a bunch of lines.

“Names,” he said. “And they’re not native. They’re written in Runic, a Viking script.”

Looking at it closely now, Alana could see that the lines looked vaguely like they might be some kind of lettering.

“Vikings,” Elena echoed, her brows raised. Alaric shrugged, focusing the light on a particular set of squiggles.

“This name here, when translated read,” And here he paused for what Alana could only assume was for suspense, “Niklaus.”

Alana and Elena shared a look, their faces mirrors of disbelief.

“Klaus,” they asked in twin-speak.

Alaric grimaced before turning back to the wall and moving the beam.

“And Elijah,” he told them and then moved the beam again and said, “And Rebekah.”

“These are the names of the Original Family,” Alana asked, moving forward to get a better look. The only one that looked vaguely like a name was Rebekah and that was because she could make out an ‘R’ and a ‘B’.

“Carved into a cave that’s . . . that’s been here way before the founding of Mystic Falls,” Alaric said, piggybacking off of Alana’s words. He sighed and turned to look between the two twins and finished with, “Or even the entire New World for that matter.”

“Okay this has gotta be one of Klaus’s fakes,” Elena said with a shake of her head.

“That’s what I said,” Damon agreed.

“Well that could be true,” Alaric was quick to say. “Except the last name up here made us think otherwise.”

“What’s the name,” Elena asked when Alaric did nothing but shine his flashlight at it.

“Mikael,” Alaric intoned, clicking off his flashlight.

“Mikael,” Alana deadpanned, looking at him as if he were a crazy person.

“Mikael, as in . . . the vampire hunter that knows how to kill Klaus,” Elena demanded.

“Yup,” Damon said and they all turned to face him. He was smirking in his usual way and he raised both brows as he said, “And I like to call him: Papa Original.” 

* * *

Alana dropped down into the leather chair as if her body was made of sand. She sank into the material and dropped her head back. She ignored the sounds of Alaric, Elena, and Damon moving about around her and settled for allowing her body to relax bit by bit.

The sound of music blasted Alana roughly from her Zen mode and she glared at the culprit, who was a grinning Damon.

Figures.

The vampire simply shrugged then motioned to Elena, who picked up a stake and started coming at him. Alana watched them, taking mental notes on the various things Damon instructed Elena on.

Alaric sighed heavily, drawing Alana’s attention for a moment. The man was leaning over the countertop and looking down at the pictures spread across it. He had taken the photos of the images on the wall of the cave so that they could examine them out in the sun.

Alana was immensely grateful because she was sure that if she had to spend any extra time in that cave she would go bat-shit crazy.

“These images tell a story,” Alaric said suddenly, talking more to himself than to Alana or the sparing pair behind him. “To learn the story, you have to decipher the images.”

Alana’s gaze slid back to the pathetic training session. It wasn’t going that well. For every move that Elena made, Damon countered easily.

“Sloppy,” the man criticized when Elena made as if to stake him in the chest. He then easily slid the wooden stake from Elena’s slack fingers and waved it mockingly in her face.

“Shut up,” Elena snapped, grabbing the stake back. “I’m new at this.”

“Ghost-of-Christmas-Past Mason Lockwood said that the cave would lead us to a weapon that could kill Klaus,” Damon said to Alaric, easily blocking the kicks Elena was now throwing at him. Elena glared and started making sharp jabs at Damon’s face.

“Yeah, but doesn’t Mikael have a weapon,” Alana asked watching with a bit of amusement as Damon caught Elena’s arm with careless ease and held her back with just one hand.

“Yes,” Damon said. “Which probably means that the wall will lead us to Mikael.”

Elena was now using both hands, using all of her weight to try and push the stake forward so that it would hit some part of Damon’s body. Damon wasn’t the least bit phased. He was still talking to Alana as if Elena’s struggles were nothing.

“Who we’ve already found . . .” Damon suddenly took the stake from Elena and she fell forward into his arms. “And lost,” Damon finished and then he spun Elena around, clamping her arms against her side.

“Bang. You’re dead,” he claimed almost cheerfully and then made as if he was going to bite into her neck. Elena pushed away from him with a glare before turning to join Alaric at the table.

Damon turned to Alana then. He held out the stake in her direction and arched his brows invitingly. Alana shook her head frantically.

“Chicken,” Damon mouthed but Alana didn’t care. There was no way she was getting that close to Damon. And even if it wasn’t Damon that was asking her to play wrestle, she still wouldn’t have gotten up because all of her muscles were still sore from the lesson at six in the morning and then the little expedition through the Lockwood tunnels.

“These images at the very least might tell us what that weapon is,” the history teacher was saying, still staring at the pictures with a puzzled expression.

“Then all we have to do is find out what they mean,” Elena said, her breath coming out in short gasps.

“Fine,” Damon exclaimed after hearing Elena’s words. “Fine! If I’m being irritatingly optimistic like you two,” and he said optimistic like it was a bad word. “How do you suppose we do that?” He ended his little question with a sarcastically cheerful grin.

“Well,” Elena drawled, brushing aside Damon’s tone. “If the story is about the Original Family living here, then we go straight to the main source.”

“That source being Rebekah, of course,” Alana said with a small frown. “But if I remember correctly, she doesn’t exactly like us -- well you really seeing as she doesn’t know I exist. So how are we supposed to get her to give us a little history lesson?”

“I agree with Clone,” Damon said, earning a sharp glare from Alana.

“I have a vague idea on how to get her to talk,” Elena told them evasively.

“Well then the ball’s in your court, thank _God_. I don’t think I would have been able to have a conversation with Vampire Barbie without trying to put a stake in her. She seems annoyingly bitchy,” Alana said, getting slowly to her feet. She walked over to Elena and threw her arm over her shoulder. “Besides, you were always the diplomatic one.” 

* * *

Alaric shuffled through the photos, categorizing the images with sticky notes. He was hoping that if he could put a name to all of the symbols he would be able to figure out what the story was.

Picking up the photo of a drawing of what might have been the sun and fangs with blood dripping from them, Alaric grabbed the notepad and scrawled down 'vampire' and attached the note to the picture.

“Wrong,” a voice said and Alaric just about jumped out of his skin.

Alana reached over and pulled out another picture. This one looked more like the sun with little triangles around the circle and fangs sticking out of the bottom of it.

“This is a vampire,” Alana told him. “And this is a werewolf. See this one has top and bottom canines,” and here she pointed at what Alaric had first assumed was blood.

“Thanks,” the vampire hunter muttered and made the correction.

The silence from before fell over them again and Alaric wasn’t sure if it was comfortable or not. It was the first time he had been left alone with Alana for an extended period of time and he wasn’t exactly sure what to say to her.

She didn’t seem like a very talkative person, given that she had been sitting on the counter top, sucking on a lollipop, and watching him silently for the past fifteen or so minutes. In fact, besides the ‘hey’ she greeted him with when she had first come in; those had been the first words he had heard her speak.

“Is all that stuff really that interesting or do you not want to talk to me,” Alana finally asked and Alaric’s gaze jerked to her face. It appeared that she had finished her lollipop and he wondered if that was the reason for the sudden conversation.

“I’m sorry,” he asked.

“I’ve been here for about fifteen minutes and you haven’t even tried to talk to me,” Alana clarified in a bored tone. She arched an eyebrow and Alaric though the expression looked a little odd on a face he had come to associate with Elena.

“Oh, um . . .”

“That’s okay,” she interrupted smoothly. “I think I’ll give it a try.” She posed a thoughtful looked, watching him closely before asking, “You dated my Aunt Jen right?”

Alaric thought it was a mark of how much he was moving on that the question only made him grimace.

“Yeah,” he answered. Alana was still watching him closely and she must have found whatever she was looking for because she nodded her head. Alaric thought the conversation was over for the moment and he went back to categorizing. He was lining the images he had already named up on the kitchen cabinets when Alana spoke again.

“I saw her,” she said lowly and Alaric froze. He could only assume, given the lack of conversation they were having, that she was talking about Jenna.

“It was before the whole tomb vampire fiasco blew up in our faces,” Alana told him, fiddling with one of the pictures. “She looked . . . happy or whatever.”

A lump was forming in Alaric’s throat. It seemed that he wasn’t as over Jenna’s death as he had first thought. Desperately he cast his mind about in search of some way to change the topic and he blurted out the first thing that came to mind.

“Why did you leave?”

Alana’s entire body jerked so hard she almost fell from where she was perched on the end of the counter top. Her dark eyes darted up to his face.

“What,” she demanded in a low tone.

Touchy subject, Alaric noted but there was no turning back now.

Clearing his throat he tried to explain himself.

“Elena mentioned that you left after your parents’ funeral. I was wondering why?”

“And what right do you have to know,” she asked, her tone scorching.

Alaric shrugged, trying not to show that he was actually afraid of her glare – it was practically drilling a hole into his head. For a moment, they were frozen, and then Alana jerked her gaze away, dropping it to the picture in her hand. She ran her fingers around the edge, her face turning thoughtful

“El and Jer like you,” she said and her tone was a lot softer than before. She heaved a huge sigh and when she looked up at him her eyes were shimmering. “I don’t like being reminded of the place I was in when I left. And I don’t have as good of a control on my anger like El does so I often lash out at people unintentionally.” She shrugged then and fell into a strained silence.

It took Alaric a moment to realize that she was apologizing. He almost laughed when it occurred to him. Her apology was just as crappy as Damon’s had been and he wondered if either of them even used the word ‘sorry’.

“It’s okay,” Alaric told her when Alana started shifting nervously. “I shouldn’t have asked.”

Alana shrugged again and a smirk twitched onto her face.

The door to the loft opened suddenly, breaking up the tense atmosphere, and Elena stepped in, halfway through a conversation.

“I’ve got this Damon,” she was saying and she waved a little hello to Alana. “If we can figure out a way to kill Klaus, Stefan will be free of his compulsion.”

Alaric chuckled at the irritated expression that came onto Alana’s face at the mention of Stefan. The girl rolled her eyes and then handed him one of the marked pictures. He added it to the cabinet then turned and waited for Elena to end her conversation. She did a moment later and looked over at him with a sigh.

Alaric gave her a knowing look, his arms crossed over his chest.

“Rebekah will come around,” she told him confidently.

“You sure about that,” he asked with a skeptical expression. “I mean a thousand-year-old vampire, I’m sure, has learned the art of patience.”

A small ping rang through the room signaling that someone had a message.

Elena looked down at her phone as she said, “She’s a thousand-year-old vampire who’s joined the cheerleading squad.” Elena then lifted up her phone with a smug look. The message was from Rebekah asking her to come over for a chat.

“There’s a whole different set of rules we play here Ric. I’ve got this.”

Alaric folded, figuring that Elena would know better how Rebekah worked. Alana, however, seemed to have a different idea.

“While I agree that Rebekah is probably not as patient as she should be, I still think you’re out of your league.”

Elena sent her an aggravated looked and Alana raised her hands in a placating move.

“What? You’ve never been Queen Bitch. All I’m saying is you’ll probably have to channel your inner Caroline.”

“You’re right,” Elena admitted. “But I’m sure I’ll manage.”

“I’m sure you will,” Alana agreed. “Now, why don’t you run along so that you’re not late for your catfight. And please make sure you win. I’m not sure if I’ll handle the embarrassment if you lose.”

Elena left then with a carefree laugh.

“So you don’t like Stefan,” Alaric asked a few minutes after Elena had left.

“He’s a douche,” Alana said in a ‘duh’ tone. “And as of right now I don’t think he’s good for my sister.” She jumped down from the counter and walked over to where he was standing in the kitchen.

“He hasn’t always been like this,” Alaric told her, watching her as her eyes trailed over the ancient images before her.

“Yeah, El mentioned that.” But Alana’s tone didn’t suggest that she cared much what Stefan used to be like. Alaric was a little surprised to see that she played the protective sister role.

“Stefan has done a lot of good things for Elena over the year,” he tried again, wondering if he could win her over. “He’s made her happy.”

Alana turned her head slightly, her brow raised questioningly.

“Are you trying to change my mind,” she asked.

“Is it working?”

“Hmm, nope,” she declined; popping the ‘p’ and then grinning like the Chester cat.

“Well, what about Damon? Do you like him?” Alaric asked curiously. He was surprised to see Alana’s face flush.

Had he stumbled upon the beginnings of a crush? Well, that was interesting.

“Damon is an ass,” Alana exclaimed, scowling but with that blush still on her face. “He’s arrogant, conniving, cynical, and overly sarcastic. And . . . and . . .”

“And you have a crush on him,” Alaric finished and this time when she glared at him, he was simply amused.

“I do _not_ have a crush on him,” she vehemently denied.

“Whatever you say,” Alaric hummed and to distract her, he held a picture under her nose. Alana’s gaze dropped to it, taking in the circle with a sloppily drawn design in it.

“What’s that,” she asked, still scowling.

 “I don’t know. I was hoping you could place it,” he sighed, pulling the picture back so that he could look at it closely. And the longer he stared at it the more familiar the design became.

“I think we need to call Bonnie,” he finally said. 

* * *

“So . . . Klaus killed his mother and then lied to his siblings about it so that his siblings would stay with him instead of Mikael,” Alana summarized, staring at Elena’s reflection in the bathroom mirror while her twin brushed her hair.

“Yeah,” Elena said, handing the brush to Alana and switching places.

“It’s like a soap opera,” Alana muttered dryly, running the brush down Elena’s hair. “The only thing left is for someone to sleep with someone else’s girlfriend . . . or boyfriend.”

“I think it’s just really sad,” Elena said quietly.

Alana put the brush down with a snort.

“You would. You’ve kind of got your own soap opera going on around here.”

Elena swatted at Alana’s shoulder and then led the way back into their childhood room. They both froze, however, when they caught sight of the person lying casually on top of Elena’s bed, hands tucked underneath his head.

“Ugh, Damon, seriously,” Elena said with a sigh.

“Ew,” Alana intoned. “What are you doing here?”

“We got Mikael,” Damon said, ignoring both girls’ less than pleased expression.

“What,” Elena asked at the same time Alana demanded, “How?”

“No idea,” Damon told them. “I guess Katherine came through. Plan’s in motion.” He smiled smugly before adding, “See. I told you I had it.”

Elena gave him her best ‘Really?’ look and Alana crossed her arms. There was no way either of them were going to congratulate him. His ego was so big already.

“Alright,” Damon said, misinterpreting Elena’s look. “Go ahead. Kick, yell, scream. Sure you’ve been planning your rant all day.”

“What did you do,” Alana asked in a resigned tone.

“I may have let the bird out of his gilded cage.”

“I’m not going to yell at you,” Elena said on a sigh and she moved forward and started pulling on her bed covers.

“Why not,” Damon wanted to know, although he didn’t sound disappointed or even surprised really. “I went behind your back. Freed Stefan. And you know what? It backfired. He’s an even bigger dick than ever. Just now he’s a dick that’s on our side.”

“Well I could have told you that,” Alana said with a snort, and she moved to help Elena. But Damon wasn’t budging one bit.

“I’m not mad,” Elena told him, dropping the blanket down with a resigned expression. “I’m tired. I just – I want to go to bed.” She gave him a meaningful look but Damon simply shifted a little and looked up at the ceiling.

“You know, I think Mikael’s weapon is a stake, ‘cause he said something about it,” he said in a thoughtful tone.

“Well then they must have carved it from the White Oak tree before they burned it,” Alana said as she began pushing at Damon’s leg. It was like the man was a rock for all it mattered.

“So I was right,” Damon said with relish. Elena rolled her eyes and then started climbing into bed. Alana shot her a look and she simply shrugged as if to say, ‘What are you going to do?’

“After _all_ that, the wall led us to Mikael.”

“It led us to more than just that,” Alana told him, climbing onto the bed and wiggling her way in between Damon and Elena. She received a glare from Damon to which she did the mature thing and stuck out her tongue.

“I think I got Rebekah on our side too,” Elena finished for Alana.

“And she did a damned good job doing it,” Alana complimented.

“Really,” Damon asked, sounding insultingly surprised. He propped himself up on his elbow so that he could look over Alana as he asked, “What’d you learn from that?”

“I learned that she’s just a girl. That she lost her mom too young, and she loves blindly and recklessly, even if it consumes her.” Elena tilted her head to the side so that she could smile at her sister. “And when all is said and done, there’s nothing more important than the bond of family.”

Alana reached out and clasped their hands together, squeezing it as she returned her sister’s smile. Damon watched them with a slight frown.

“Well, you should tell that to my brother,” he told her.

Elena giggled before sighing and saying, “I’m not mad at you for letting him out Damon.” She locked eyes with him from where he was still looking down at her from over Alana.

“I think that you’re gonna be the one to save him from himself. It won’t be because he loves me. It’ll be because he loves _you_.” Elena then reached over and turned off the lamp that was lighting the room. She then turned so that her back was facing both Alana and Damon and said in a dreamy voice, “Can I tell you the rest tomorrow?”

“Sure,” Damon agreed, falling back onto the bed with a pensive look.

Alana turned onto her side so that her back was pressed against Elena’s. The bed wasn’t made to hold three people so they were packed in pretty tightly. Her face was just centimeters from his, and she stared at the contours of Damon’s face for a moment, drinking him in. She could smell the night air on him and underneath that the sharp tang of alcohol.

“She’s right you know,” Alana whispered and she saw Damon’s eyes tilt to the side so that he was watching her. “Stefan will probably be back to his Bambi killing days because of you. It’s all that blood is thicker stuff. You’re family and, despite all odds and whatever grievances you might have with each other, you’re all each other has.”

“Since when did you get all philosophical?”

Alana shrugged. “I have my moments.”

That thoughtful look came back onto Damon’s face and he was quiet for so long that Alana had started to fall asleep.

“Do you really think I can save Stefan,” Damon asked softly, tilting his head to the side. They were so close that their noses brushed, but Alana hardly noticed.

“Of course,” she whispered. She snuggled deeper into the pillow, her eyes fluttering shut. “If all the stuff Elena tells me about him are true, then he’s still in there. Somewhere.”

And then she was gripped firmly by the sandman and dragged into the realm of sleep. 

* * *

Damon laid there in the dark, staring up at the pale ceiling above him. He could just make out the sticky residue left after someone peeled a sticker away and he imagined that at some point Elena had covered the ceiling in glow-in-the-dark stars. It seemed like something she would do.

The room was mostly silent and the only sound that registered in his hyper-sensitive hearing was the soft breathing of Alana Gilbert.

The girl was currently curled up against his side, only a couple of centimeters separating them. Her warmth radiated out from her skin and seemed to sink into Damon, and her breath ghosted over his face. She smelled like toothpaste and almond body wash and lavender shampoo and blood.

Damon’s thoughts were currently on this girl that was just as intoxicating as her sister. She was like a 1000 piece number puzzle and he was struggling to work her out. He had meant it when he had said she wasn’t like Elena.

Elena was like . . . sunshine. Warm and nice but if he got too close or laid out too long he got burned. She was a forbidden treasure that a person searched high and low for only to find out that someone else had snatched it up. Elena was that one person who tried to see the good it everyone – like Rebekah for instance. She was: irritatingly calm, annoyingly serious, and dangerously trusting.

Alana, on the other hand, was something different. For one thing, she wasn’t taken. However, she did tend to keep people out of reach. It was kind of like he was watching a commercial on food and he knew he could go out and get it but somehow it still avoided him. Alana was tougher than Elena, a bit more hardened. But she was also quirky and sometimes insane. She joked her way through serious and tense situations. She partied like it was her last day. And she sure as hell could drink, which was a _huge_ turn-on. Any girl that could work her way through a bottle of whiskey was Damon’s kind of girl.

Thinking about it retrospectively, if Damon had to choose a twin to be the Robin to his Batman, he’d probably choose Alana. She was just so much more . . . fun than Elena.

And that was what was puzzling him the most.

From what Damon had observed so far, no one in Mystic Falls really knew about Alana. Damon would have assumed that she had lived somewhere else if he hadn’t seen her name written down on the town’s registry since she was born. There really was no excuse for her to have no friends outside of her little family – and it was obvious she didn’t because she was always so tense around Blondie and Witchy.

And Damon really couldn’t understand it.

Alana was . . . kind of interesting. Well, she wasn’t a bore and she knew how to party, so it was likely that she was likable.

Then again, Damon wasn’t really a good judge of character.

Alana sighed and suddenly pushed closer to Damon, her breast pressing into his arm. Damon’s eyes darted down to her face, but she was still asleep and seemed to have no idea what she had just done. From this angle, Damon could almost see down her tank top – could see the smooth skin crest at the top curve of her breast.

And wasn’t that just peachy?

Sighing, Damon looked back up at the ceiling. Not because he didn’t want to see them – Alana was pretty damn hot, she was Elena’s twin after all – but because despite what people may think he was still somewhat of a gentleman.

Besides, if he really wanted to get a look, all he had to do was charm the top off of her.

Damon frowned at this train of thought. It suddenly occurred to him that charming Alana might be a little bit harder than normal. So far she seemed completely immune to his advances.

Damon had known the girl for a total of nine days and he had received so many mixed signals . . .

One minute they were flirting and the next they were arguing – which was honestly just more flirting in his book. One minute Alana looked happy to see him and the next she looked like she might try to punch him in the face again. One minute she was being blatantly sexual and the next she was brushing him off like he didn’t matter.

Damon hadn’t been this frustrated about a girl since Katherine.

And it had been such a long time since he had some good old fun. He blamed Elena for that. If he wasn’t always trying to save her while also fighting the urge to kiss her senseless, he might just be a little bit happier with his life – err un-life or whatever people wanted to call it.

Alana suddenly threw a long smooth leg over Damon’s waist so that she was halfway straddling him. Damon froze, took in her peacefully sleeping face, and for the first time ever, tried to get away.

Oh, he would have loved to do something about the current situation, but Elena was sleeping right next to them. And besides, he wasn’t so sexually frustrated that he’d take advantage of a sleeping girl.

He had higher morals than that.

Finally managing to slip out, Damon stood up stiffly and turned toward the bed.

Alana had wiggled her way into his spot and was now cuddling with the pillow he had been using. Elena murmured something in her sleep and then threw her arm out and smacked Alana hard in the head. Alana frowned before kicking out her leg to retaliate against her sister.

Damon waited until he was at the end of the street before he allowed his laughter to consume him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Updates are probably going to get slower but I'll try to keep to a schedule for when I update.


	7. Homecoming

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So what's the plan?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eh . . . I've come to the realization that I'm really, really bad about updating. I've got up to 11 chapters written already. My bad guys.
> 
> That being said, I'm in my final year of college and I've got a lot of shit to do . . . I'm stage managing a play! . . . So while I will put up the few chapters I have it might be a while before I can continue this story. Let's keep our fingers crossed that that won't be the case.

The day is coming

The way is clear

The day has come

_My Morning Jacket – The Day Is Coming_

_September 29, 2010 – Mystic Falls: Lockwood House_

Alana approached the mayor’s house with a deep sense of unease. It stood all tall and forbearing and what not and although Alana knew she was being ridiculous, she thought the house looked like it might lean over and eat her. Not that the house was scary or anything, it was more like who lived there. When she was younger Alana had harbored a bit of a fear toward Carol Lockwood and her arrogant, somewhat terrifying husband. But Tyler had assured her that things had changed when his dad had died.

Swallowing down her irrational fear, Alana knocked soundly on the door.

The door creaked open slowly and Alana was greeted with the frowning face of one Carol Lockwood. She looked just as Alana had remembered her – neatly combed reddish-brown hair, painted lips, and slightly tanned skin – only with a little more wrinkles between her brow and around her mouth.

“Hi, Mrs. Lockwood,” Alana greeted politely with a slight incline of her head, just as she had been raised to do. “Is Tyler home?”

“Elena,” Carol said coolly with some surprise and Alana frowned at her. Carol seemed to notice the frown because she shook her head and gave Alana a shaky smile that was a little more genuine than Alana was used to.

“I’m sorry. You’re Alana, right?”

“Yeah,” Alana answered, shifting uncomfortably on her feet.

“Well, don’t just stand there,” Carol said after a moment of rather awkward silence and she shifted to the side to give Alana entrance. She was smooth, Alana had to admit. If she didn’t know Carol was in on the whole vampire business she would have never notice that the mayor hadn’t actually _invited_ her inside.

“Mom, who is it at the door,” Tyler’s voice echoed down the winding staircase and it was soon followed by the teen himself. Alana felt slightly smug at that way Tyler’s entire face lit up when he saw her, but Carol just frowned at him in confusion.

“Alana,” Tyler cheered, rushing down the rest of the stairs. He scooped her up into a hug and twirled her around. Alana giggled cheerful, wrapping her arms around his thick shoulders as they spun dizzyingly.

“You two know each other,” Carol asked when Tyler had stopped spinning and had dropped Alana back onto her feet.

“Yeah Mom,” Tyler said in a slightly irritated tone with a roll of his eyes. He gave Alana an exasperated look to which Alana shook her head sadly. “I’ve been friends with Alana since we were two. She’s been over here more than Matt.”

Carol’s brows furrowed, making her frown lines even more noticeable, as she thought over her son’s words. Alana could practically see the gears turning in her mind, and she was little irritated. Honestly, she had been coming to the Lockwood house every day since ninth grade – when Elena started dating Matt.

“Oh,” Carol said after a minute and then she offered Alana an apologetic smile. “I always thought that was Elena. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Alana said dismissively, not really caring either way. Carol Lockwood wasn’t on her ‘People-I-Wish-Would-Care-That-I-Exist’ list. “It’s a common misconception.”

Carol frowned at her but seemed to let it go.

“Well I’ll leave you two alone,” she said slowly and then walked off, muttering to herself. Alana looked over at Tyler with an arched brow and he just shrugged.

“So what are you doing here,” Tyler asked later on when the two of them were up in his room, Alana spread out on his floor. “Not that I don’t want you here or anything. I just thought you’d be with Elena helping the Homecoming committee.”

“Is that where you’re going,” Alana asked with a smirk as she watched Tyler walk around the room and throw things about. It looked like he was trying to clean, but it was hard to tell seeing as he was just moving stuff around.

“Yeah, Caroline roped me into helping,” Tyler said, pausing with a shoe in one hand and looking off into the distance with a sappy smile. Alana snorted and he turned to look down at her curiously.

“You’re so _whipped_ ,” Alana laughed with a cheeky grin.

“Yeah, tell that to Caroline,” Tyler said with a roll of his dark eyes. Alana frowned at his words and she propped herself up on her elbows. He was moving about his room again, throwing clothes into a corner by his closet.

“She still giving you crap about this whole sire bond,” Alana asked with concern.

“Something like that,” Tyler said vaguely. He paused again, this time with a button-up shirt clenched in his fist and he frowned distantly down at the article of clothing.

“Hey,” Alana called sitting forward more so that she was bracing her arms against her knees. Tyler turned to look at her although his gaze was still a little distant. “It’ll be okay,” Alana told him with a motherly smile. “She may not get it now but it’ll probably all work out in the end. Isn’t that how things go with you magical people?” Tyler’s eyes cleared and he snorted at Alana’s words.

“Since when are you Ms. Optimism,” he asked with a smirk crawling onto his face. Alana mock glared at him before jumping to her feet. She punched him playfully in the arm, which was nothing really, before walking into his closet where she started rummaging through it.

“So what are you wearing to Homecoming,” she asked, raising her voice slightly over the sound of rattling hangers.

“A suit,” Tyler said in a ‘duh’ tone and Alana could practically hear him rolling his eyes. Alana sighed and poked her head out of the closet so that Tyler could see the look of contempt on her face.

“Don’t get coy with me, Mr. Lockwood,” she sniffed in her best snob voice. Tyler threw a rolled up sock at her head and she ducked back into the closet to avoid it.

“Anyways, I was talking about the colors,” Alana told him as she began going through his clothes. He had acquired some new stuff and Alana supposed she had Caroline to thank for that. “Obviously, you’ll wear a black suit jacket because you only own black ones. But what colored shirt and tie?”

Alana stuck her head back out of the closet in time to see Tyler shrug and wrinkle his nose in typical guy fashion. Alana rolled her eyes before turning back to the closet. Tyler had a good couple of dress shirt, curtsy of his mother and vampire girlfriend, and so the choice was just a little harder than what she normal had to deal with.

“What’s Caroline wearing,” she asked distractedly as she considered a silvery gray shirt.

“I don’t know, pink I think,” Tyler said in an I-don’t-really-care voice.

“Of course,” Alana muttered with a shake of her head. Her brown eyes scanned Tyler’s shirt and after another minute of looking, she pulled out a dark blue one with thin gray stripes in it.

“Here,” she told him, tossing the shirt onto his bed. “You’ll wear this with that shiny black tie your mother bought you for Christmas.”

Tyler shrugged, used to Alana dressing him up when it came to special occasions. Normally he hated it but he had missed Alana so he was letting her do whatever she wanted. And besides, Alana was a whole lot easier to deal with than Caroline.

“Who are you going with,” Tyler asked as Alana lined up his outfit neatly on his bed. She even lined up his shoes and pulled out some socks for him. Luckily enough Tyler stopped her before she could go rummaging through his underwear drawer – she had actually done that in the past before.

“It’s not like I don’t know you’re a boxers guy,” Alana said with a snort. Tyler blushed at that and swatted at her arm. Alana avoided his hand with a grin before plopping down on the bed with a little bounce. “Anyways, I’m not going to the dance.”

“You’re not,” Tyler asked. “Why?”

“Well first I don’t have a date,” Alana told him with a shake of her head. “And second, dances aren’t my scene. So I’ll skip on this one. No one will really miss me anyways.”

Tyler frowned at her and moved so that he was sitting next to her on the bed.

“I’ll miss you,” he said with sincerity shining in his brown eyes. “No party is ever really fun without my best friend there.”

“Wow, Mystical Falls must have been so dull since I left if that’s the case,” Alana said dryly, knocking her shoulder against Tyler’s. But there was a smile on her face and that seemed to draw one from Tyler also.

“Absolutely dull,” Tyler intoned dutifully. He lifted his large hand and rubbed Alana on the head, messing up her hair. “Anyways, I should probably head out before Caroline comes hunting me down.”

“Oo, scary vampire girlfriend,” Alana teased. “Boy do you have it tough.” And she laughed when Tyler threw a pillow at her head. 

* * *

“Uh, did you guys forget someone,” Alana demanded as she rushed into Damon’s room.

Elena’s head snapped up from where she was messing around with the numerous amounts of stakes gathered on Damon’s bed. She took in Alana’s arched brow and the hands on her hips and felt guilt wash over her. She had been so caught up in ‘the big plan’ that she had completely forgotten to keep Alana informed – like she had promised when Damon had kicked Alana out in order to keep her a secret.

Elena opened her mouth, an explanation on the tip of her tongue, when Damon suddenly ran out of the bathroom and up to Alana. He was standing so close to the older twin that they were practically chest-to-chest. Alana took a step back, clearly startled, but she held her ground. She folded her arms and glared up at the vampire. Elena wouldn’t have been surprised if she started tapping her foot.

“What are you doing here,” Damon demanded lowly, his own eyes narrowed also. “You’re supposed to be staying out of sight so that Klaus doesn’t find out about you.”

“Don’t worry,” Alana told him, waving her hand in the air dismissively. Elena saw Damon’s hand twitch a little as if he wanted to grab Alana’s arm. “Vampire Barbie went out and her daddy disappeared somewhere.”

Damon's face took on a thoughtful expression now. He peered into Alana’s eyes for a moment before shrugging and darting back through the doorway into the bathroom without another word.

Alana turned to look questioningly at Elena, but the younger twin simply shrugged unhelpfully. With a small sigh and a shake of her head, Alana walked over to the bed and began looking over the weapons spread out over the sheets. It was an impressive collection and there was enough stuff to start a freaking armory.

“We can’t trust Rebekah not to turn on us,” Elena said after a moment of silence. She was carefully screwing together tops for some homemade grenades.

“Oh really,” Damon’s voice floated in from the bathroom, his tone painfully sarcastic. “Cause these Original vampires are usually so reliable.”

“I don’t remember trusting her at all,” Alana added in nonchalantly. She tossed a couple more grenades to Elena and then began composing her own pile. “So what changed your mind?”

“Bonnie,” Elena said with a sigh, scooping up her pile of the nifty little grenades Alaric had created. “She was right. Rebekah may be mad at Klaus now but – he is her brother.”

“Her insane brother.”

“Her lying, momma-killing, dagger-happy brother,” Damon added.

Alana snorted, gathered up of her own pile of grenades and together with Elena they walked into the bathroom. Alana poured her pile into an empty sink and then moved away so Elena could do the same. It was a little weird how she was taking this whole thing. Here she was, creating grenades in the bathroom and talking about crazy psycho vampires. She wondered vaguely when things had turned so . . . insane.

“Wolfsbane is ready,” Damon announced unnecessarily, giving the spoon in his hand a final stir and then tossing it to the side.

Alana peered quizzically at the green-tinged water in the sink. There were even some floating leaves here and there. It didn’t look particularly harmful; then again, she wasn’t a werewolf.

“There are too many things that can go wrong with this plan,” Elena said on a sigh, yanking apart a grenade a little more forcefully that she probably should. “Too many people that can make it go wrong.”

“Well I am formulating a secret contingency plan,” Damon told her in his usual cocky manner. He even did that whole eye thing he was known to do when he wanted to sound trustworthy.

Alana dunked an open grenade bottle into the Wolfsbane solution and then pulled it out when it was halfway full.

“Are you guys ever going to _tell_ me the plan,” she asked nonchalantly as if she didn’t care if they did or didn’t.

“What is it,” Elena asked over Alana, handing her sister another empty grenade.

“Well, if I told you, then it wouldn’t be a secret,” Damon said to both of them and then nodded his head subtly at the doorway leading back into his room. At that very moment, Stefan appeared in all his arrogant, douche-baggy glory.

“I need to borrow a tie,” he said, his eyes fixed on Damon. He was looking through Alana and Elena as if the twins weren’t even in the room.

“You have your own ties,” Damon told him, paying unnecessary attention to putting together a grenade so that he wouldn’t have to look at his younger brother. Alana could practically feel the irritation Damon held for Stefan permitting the air. It didn’t really help that Stefan seemed to hold the same irritation for Damon, even with his emotions shut off or whatever.

“I’m a hundred-and-sixty-two years old and I’m going to a Homecoming Dance. I need better ties,” Stefan insisted, ignoring Alana when she muttered something about “cradle robbing”. He leaned against the doorframe and crossed his ankles like a good little southern gentleman. Alana rolled her eyes and just barely managed to keep from snorting at the image he gave off.

“You could not go,” Elena suggested with a shrug.

“Oo, I like that idea,” Alana agreed.

“I’m compelled to protect you,” Stefan told Elena for what had to have been the hundredth time. “And if I look at your track record, at high school dances . . .” he sighed a little mockingly, “it’s pretty tragic. With my luck, you’ll go and get yourself killed by the Homecoming Queen.”

“Well if Rebekah kills the original homecoming queen, and let’s face it that’s very likely to happen, then yeah, El probably will be in trouble,” Alana said in a falsely chipper tone.

Stefan gave Alana a sardonic smile and then disappeared around the corner. Alana stuck her tongue out at his back before turning back to the job at hand. She grabbed the cap to the grenade and struggled to twist the little bombing device into it. Despite how simple the thing looked, the task was a little harder than one would think.

“Give me that.” Damon suddenly grabbed at Alana’s grenade, which of course made Alana tug it back.

“Hey, I can handle this,” she insisted when Damon didn’t let go.

“Alana, if this thing suddenly blows up in our face – just remember: only one of us heals quickly,” Damon told her with uncharacteristic caution. He then ruined it by slapping at the back of her hand so that she dropped the little device.

Alana scowled but had to agree that Damon was a little bit right. That didn’t mean she was going to tell him that to his face. The small smile Alana saw on Elena’s face showed that her twin had some idea as to what she was thinking and so she nudged the younger girl in the side.

“Aw, please tell me that you have a better plan than Wolfsbane grenades,” Stefan mocked, walking into the bathroom fully this time. He had two ties in his hand and was checking them both out in the mirror.

“Never you mind, brother. The less you know, the better.” Damon successfully put together a grenade and showed it to Alana with a smug little smile. Alana glared at him but managed to control the urge to stick her tongue out this time.

“My freedom from Klaus rests entirely upon you three executing your plan perfectly. So, excuse me if I’m a bit cynical.” Alana looked over at Stefan with an incredulous smile. Mr. Cynical was trying out ties in the mirror for a high school Homecoming Dance and he was mocking them? Hmm . . .

“You’re the one that we should be worried about,” Elena said suddenly as Stefan was walking out of the bathroom again. The cocky vampire turned to look at her with faked curiosity. “If Klaus asks you one wrong question – the whole thing falls apart.”

“You do have reason to worry,” Stefan admitted, resting his shoulder against the frame of the entryway. “ _But_ – if I look back in our history of epic plan failures, it’s usually because one of us let our humanity get in the way.” Damon and Elena shared a look at these words and Alana could see that Elena looked especially concerned now.

“So if I’m taking odds on how this thing will go down, it’s certainly not going to be me who screws things up,” Stefan finished. He then smiled mockingly, like he was happy to have put doubt into Elena’s mind.

Alana wanted to rip his head off.

“I’ll see you at homecoming. I can’t wait.” And then he turned to disappear again, but Alana wasn’t going to let him leave without having the last word.

“Yeah, well I don’t have those pesky attachments. So I think we’ll do just fine,” she called after him and she was just the slightest bit miffed when the bastard didn’t even consider commenting back. Alana huffed and then turned to her sister who was staring at her with large doe eyes. “Don’t worry El. We got this.”

“But what about Rebekah,” Elena asked softly, biting down on her bottom lip. Alana made a face at the thought of the Vampire Barbie. Even though she hadn’t really met the blonde, there was just something about the thought of her that just irked Alana.

“We’ll have to get her out of the way,” Damon said, inserting himself into the conversation. Both girls turned to look at him curiously. He smirked in his usual way before pulling from his belt the nice little dagger that had made Mikael drop like a fly – at least that’s what Alana assumed had happened. She had yet to see the little dagger in action.

“No,” Elena protested with a little gasp of horror. Alana rolled her eyes before patting her sister comfortingly on the head.

“Worry not, sister dearest,” she told Elena in a sweet tone. “It’s _my_ turn.”

“Perfect,” Damon said with a sharp grin, which Alana mirrored.

Elena looked between the two with clear worry and guilt. She was clearly thinking about Rebekah and how sad the Original was. Alana could almost hear Elena talking about how Rebekah was just a sad little girl that just wanted love. But Elena just shook her head at them and said nothing.

Alana knew that she knew that this was an important mission – if you could call it that. So she patted her sister comfortingly on the arm and went back to assembling grenades. 

* * *

Alana walked slowly towards the room and stopped in the doorway to take a moment and observe Rebekah critically. Alana had to admit that the blonde looked pretty in her red halter dress and for one fleeting moment she felt guilty about what she was going to do – but only for a moment.

“Getting a head start, huh,” Alana asked in what she knew was an Elena-like tone. She even crossed her ankles as she leaned against the doorframe, just like Elena did.

Rebekah sighed before turning away from the mirror slightly to look at her.

“Embarrassing truth,” she said with a bit of sadness in her accented voice. “This is my first high school dance.”

The surprise that flashed across Alana’s face was all her own, but she made sure to arch both of her brows so that it didn’t come off as sarcastic. Elena was _not_ a sarcastic person.

“Ever,” Alana asked, allowing the shock to filter into her voice. She pushed off of the doorframe and dropped her arms as she stared at Rebekah’s back. The blonde vampire had turned back to the mirror and was staring critically at her body.

“I never really had time for high school before. Nick and I were always – moving around,” she confided in Alana and Alana would have felt a little sad for her if she wasn’t such a bitchy psycho vampire with an evil psycho brother. But she was Elena right now so she allowed her eyes to drop as if she did feel sorry for the vampire.

“Running,” Rebekah finished on a somber note with a little sigh. Her eyes flickered to Alana’s in the mirror for a minute before she summoned up a clearly fake smile.

“Anyways, I-I didn’t want to leave anything up to chance.”

Alana swallowed and pasted Elena’s sympathy smile onto her face. It was just a little wobbly, but that was only because she was out of practice. It was silent for a minute and Alana allowed it so that she could summon up more of Elena’s mannerisms.

“Have you heard any more from him,” Rebekah asked suddenly.

“No,” Alana said quickly, for a second confused until she realized the sad-ish look in Rebekah’s eyes were for her brother. Alana cast her mind about for a typical Elena-to-Klaus response and then decide to throw caution to the wind on this one.

“But I’m sure when he does return he’ll do it with flair.” Alana grimaced at the end, hoping Rebekah didn’t see through her, but it seemed it was the right response, because the blonde went on to ask, “And Damon and my father are all set with their plan?”

Alana sighed internally and collected herself once more.

“Yes,” she told Rebekah with a little bit of conviction.

“Don’t tell me,” Rebekah warned, turning away from the mirror and walking over to a small table. There was a clasp bracelet there and she slipped it onto her thin wrist. “I don’t want to know. I just – I want to go to the dance and leave the rest to Mikael.”

Alana hesitated for a moment before walking closer to Rebekah. The vampire was actually taller than her; then again, she was wearing heels.

“I know it’s really hard,” Alana said with all the sympathy Elena was known to have. Rebekah definitely looked sad now and Alana knew then that this was the right thing to do. But before that, she had to do something for Elena, so that her sister wouldn’t feel too bad afterwards.

“So thank you for helping us get Klaus back into town,” she said sincerely.

“Just be careful,” Rebekah warned with a dazed look, like she wasn’t really seeing Alana or the room. “I’ve been running for a thousand years for a reason. Mikael is not a good person and he definitely can’t be trusted.”

Her words brought Alana up for a moment. She had assumed that Rebekah was going to warn her against Klaus, but this was new. But then she said, “No one in my family can,” and all was suddenly right with the world – because that was definitely a warning against Klaus and, whether the vampire realized it or not, it was also a warning against Rebekah herself.

Alana stared at her, taking in her suddenly pinched face, trembling jaw, and the tightness around her green eyes. Alana knew all too well what it looked like when a person was about to cry and Rebekah certainly looked it now. And boy did Alana not want to have to witness that, it would just make this job so much harder.

“Are you okay,” she asked with a penetrating look, almost as if she wanted to compel Rebekah not to cry.

“I’ve spent my whole life,” Rebekah started with a deep sigh as if to keep the tears at bay, “loving and hating my brother with equal measure. I never thought that I’d be the one to help drive the stake through his heart.”

Alana sighed and opened her mouth to spew out the kind of reassurances Elena probably had listed in her head, but Rebekah turned away from her. Alana was glad that the vampire had some sense of pride because this was becoming very uncomfortable very quickly.

“No tears. I don’t want to ruin my makeup,” Rebekah then said in typical Vampire Barbie fashion. Alana almost laughed at her. Rebekah sniffled a little as she stood in the front of the mirror once more. “How do I look?”

And here was her chance.

Alana held out her arms with an almost exasperated manner and slowly approached Rebekah. It was taking all of her acting skills to move slowly and cautiously, but she was determined to do this right – for both herself and Elena.

“You look amazing,” she told her with an Elena-y smile, laying it on a little thick now. But Elena always acted like this when she was trying to comfort a person, so Alana wasn’t all too worried about being discovered. “But you’re missing one thing.”

Rebekah turned and there were those pesky tears in her eyes. Alana was almost itching to get this over with. So she lifted up that silly little locket that had belonged to the Original Witch, and which had caused them all a shit load of problems since she had gotten back.

Rebekah’s eyes immediately dropped to it and then widened.

“My mother’s necklace,” she said with some surprise.

“You should wear it tonight,” Alana told her softly. Rebekah looked at her with wonder before turning back to face the mirror. “May I,” Alana asked and Rebekah nodded almost eagerly, although her lips were pressed together.

Alana unclasped the lock and moved to place the necklace on Rebekah’s slender neck. She tried not to notice the little tears that had managed to slide down the vampire’s pale cheek, showing all the more because of the running mascara. Rebekah locked eyes with Alana in the mirror and her smile was a little watery.

“Thank you,” she said with clear sincerity.

That little guilt fluttered in Alana’s chest again, but in the next moment, it was gone. She shifted the dagger they had taken from Mikael out from where it was tucked into the back of her jeans. Taking a deep breath, Alana placed her hand carefully on Rebekah’s shoulder and then plunged the dagger into her back, right where Damon had instructed the heart would be.

It was a little weird watching Rebekah’s skin turn gray and wrinkly right before her eyes. The blonde vampire looked at Alana’s reflection with pure shock, and still keeping in character Alana pulled a regretful face.

“I’m so sorry,” she told Rebekah. “I can’t leave anything to chance either.”

Rebekah dropped like dead weight and Alana jumped back a little. So the dagger did make them drop like flies – go figure. She stared at the decrepit Barbie and tried to feel some sort of remorse. But it was hard when she knew that this chick actually hurt Elena, no matter that that was in the past.

A sudden sound at the door had Alana looking up.

Speak of the devil, she thought as she lifted her hand in a little wave at Elena. Damon was behind her looking into the room curiously. He had a large blanket in his arms and he walked forward into the room to look down at Rebekah.

“Right in the back. Now _that_ ,” he said in an almost cheerful voice as he threw the blanket over the felled Original, “was harsh.” Alana shrugged and sat on the bed where Elena immediately joined her.

“It had to be done,” Alana said matter-of-factly, her eyes shifted away from Rebekah to Damon but he was still looking at the Vampire Barbie. “Rebekah was never going to be completely on our side.”

Elena stared down at the covered body of Rebekah with a deep frown. She hadn’t been too keen on the idea, but what’s done is done. Damon shrugged and turned to look at the twins.

“Hey, I’m not judging you,” he said. “It’s just very - _Katherine_ of you.”

Elena visibly flinched but Alana simply arched her brow questioningly. She wasn’t sure if she should take that as a compliment or not, seeing as Katherine was an evil manipulative bitch that toyed with innocent men’s hearts and all that – not that Damon could really be considered an innocent man anymore . . . or Stefan either really.

“That’s not the way to make her feel better about herself, Damon,” Elena said in a tight tone.

“It was a compliment,” Damon shot back defensively and then added lowly, “Sort of . . .”

“And I don’t need to feel better about myself,” Alana added carelessly. “Vampire Barbie was a threat and now she’s not.”

“Stefan’s right,” Elena said suddenly with a sigh and a shake of her head. “Someone’s going to let their humanity get in the way and screw this whole thing up. And it’s probably going to be me,” she finished looked a little hangdog. Alana reached over and threw her arm around Elena’s shoulder, pulling her into a half hug.

“Stefan can go kick rocks,” she said in typical older sister fashion.

“Elena,” Damon said, standing up and coming to sit next to her on the bed. “You just contributed in daggering somebody. You’re gonna be just fine.”

“Yeah, but I feel bad about it,” Elena protested weakly. “And I didn’t even actually _do_ it. I care too much, that’s the problem, Damon.” Alana shrugged a little because Elena was right, she did care too much. “I’m the weak link.”

“If it makes you feel any better, she’s not really dead,” Damon said in an almost teasing tone. Alana snorted and ran her hand comfortingly down Elena’s back. Elena sighed and then shrugged away from Alana. She stood up so that she could look at both Damon and Alana at the same time.

“Do you trust him,” she asked them both. “Mikael?”

“Nope,” Damon and Alana said at the same time. Elena narrowed her eyes at them, looking a little skeptical.

“What about Stefan?”

“Nope,” was the answer again, echoed by the two cynics.

“Not as long as he’s under Klaus’s control,” Damon added. Elena sighed and bit down on her bottom lip, her eyes dropping to the floor in thought.

“Then we need a better plan,” she said after a moment and she pinned Damon with her desperate eyes.

“I know what to do,” Damon told her quickly and his blue eyes moved between her and Alana. Alana’s back was immediately up as he said, “You’re just not going to like it,” to the both of them. Alana arched a brow at him.

“Why not,” she demanded before Elena could get the chance.

“Because when this all goes down, I don’t want you having _any_ part of it,” Damon told her, looking her right in the eyes.

“What does that mean,” Elena asked in confusion. Damon’s eyes flickered to her face and narrowed.

“Do you trust me,” he asked her and Elena immediately said, “Yes” for the both of them.

Alana shot her sister a glare but Damon’s mouth quirked up into his signature smirk and he looked between the twins again as he said, “Then you two have nothing to worry about.”

Alana still looked skeptical, because Damon hadn’t asked her personally if _she_ trusted him. But she figured that anything that kept Elena out of harm’s way was good enough for her – which Damon probably already knew. 

* * *

“This is _so_ boring,” Alana moaned, turning her head slightly so that she was looking at Elena’s ear. Elena turned her head also so that now Alana was looking at her forehead. Rolling her eyes, Alana shifted upward a little on the bed so that they were now eye to eye.

“It’s not like you wanted to go to the dance in the first place,” Elena said with a little snark. Alana frowned and turned to look back up at the ceiling of Stefan’s room.

“No need to get snippy at me. I’m not the one who came up with this plan.”

Alana heard Elena sigh as she propped herself up on her elbows. Alana titled her head back so that she could stare at the back of Elena’s head.

“I’m sorry,” Elena said, turning her head so that she was looking at Alana from over her shoulder. “I’m just worried something might go wrong.”

“Well yeah,” Alana said with a huff, sitting up fully and moving so that she could look Elena in the face. “All plans have a likely chance of going wrong. So let’s just think that this one has more of a chance of going right, 'kay?”

Elena shrugged halfheartedly and offered up a shaky smile. Alana rolled her eyes and then scrambled off the bed.

“Where are you going,” Elena asked and there was a little bit of panic in her voice.

“This is boring. So, I’m going to get us a couple of drinks,” Alana said with a little wink. She then sauntered from the room, humming a little tune to herself.

She was halfway down the stairs when she heard the low murmur of voices. From the sound of it, it sounded like Stefan and . . . Elena? Well, that couldn’t be right, so it had to have been this mysterious Katherine.

Alana crouched down so that she could peer into the living room from the breezeway. Stefan was lying on the floor, sucking on a blood bag from the hospital, and Katherine was standing over him. Alana could only see half of Katherine’s face, but she could definitely see the wonderful family resemblance.

“If Klaus gets killed he’s taking Damon down with him,” Katherine was telling Stefan in a hushed voice. Stefan got slowly to his feet, wiping the blood off of his chin. Alana wrinkled her nose at that and wondered if Elena knew he boyfriend was such a messy eater.

“So pull the plug on the plan,” Stefan told Katherine in a careless tone.

“And face the wrath of Mikael,” Katherine asked, and there was a bit of fear in her voice. “We’ll all be dead.” Stefan turned away from her, looking like he would rather see paint dry.

“Okay look. I know that you’ve turned off your humanity,” and here Katherine’s voice turned mocking, “and that you don’t care. So there’s only one solution.”

“What’s that,” Stefan asked, his tone slightly interested now. Alana was pressing her face against the bars as she listened in.

“Care, Stefan,” Katherine told him in a commanding tone and she stepped forward so that she could seem more intense. Alana could imagine her using _those_ eyes to seem alluring, because she used _those_ eyes and Elena used _those_ eyes. “Care enough to save Damon’s life. Because I am going back to that party and I’m seeing this plan through. Klaus will be killed. We’ll have our freedom.” Katherine sighed and Alana could see the subtle shifts in her familiar face that suggested that she was narrowing her eyes.

“But then Damon will be dead. Your brother will be dead, Stefan.”

Stefan’s eyes flickered to the side and connected with Alana’s. She froze, her body tensing up, but the moody vampire didn’t do anything but stare at her.

“Unless you care enough to do something about it.” With those final words, Katherine strolled from the room in a strut that was all her own.

Alana stood slowly and made her way down the rest of the stairs. Stefan was still standing in the same place, watching her with eyes that showed his conflicting emotions.

“You’re going to screw all this up, aren’t you,” Alana asked in an accusing tone. Stefan finally looked away from her and Alana took that as a yes. She sighed heavily and shook her head before saying, “Alright.”

“Alright,” Stefan repeated skeptically, turning to look back at her with searching green eyes. “You’re just going to let me mess up Damon’s plan? You’re not going to try and stop me.”

“Why should I,” Alana asked with a shrug. She walked over to where Damon kept all of his liquor and calmly poured two drinks. Then she turned to face Stefan again. “See, the way I see it, the fact that you’re going to rescue Damon means that there’s some redeeming quality in you. So go ahead and let your humanity run wild.”

Alana’s tone turned mocking toward the end and Stefan’s face scrunched up at her words. She knew he was thinking about what he had said earlier to Elena.

“You can’t tell him,” Stefan said as she was walking back up the stair with her and Elena’s drink. “Damon can’t know.”

“If you say so,” Alana called back. “Mum’s the word.” She winked at Stefan and then continued her way up.

“What took you so long,” Elena asked when she stepped back into the room.

“Damon hid the good stuff,” Alana said easily and she quirked her lip a little. Elena took it with a little grin and drank it down like a champ. Alana watched her sister, her smile widening.

“El,” she said softly and Elena looked at her with curious doe eyes. “I love you.” A smile broke across Elena’s pretty face.

“I love you too,” she said back immediately. 

* * *

Alana and Elena were sitting right there in the living room, laughing like a couple of schoolgirls. Their laughter immediately cut off when Damon stormed in, practically spitting anger. Both girls immediately jumped to their feet.

“He screwed everything up,” Damon roared. “My idiot brother screwed us all over!”

“I’m sorry what,” Alana asked watching as Damon paced the room.

“Mikael is dead and the only thing that can kill Klaus burned up with him,” Damon growled, yanking his hand through his hair. Even with him raging like this Alana though he looked incredibly hot.

“How did this happen,” Elena asked, worry clear in her voice.

“We thought of everything,” Damon ranted. “Klaus having hybrids. Mikael turning on us. We brought in Katherine so neither of you would be in danger. Anything that could have gone wrong, we were prepared.”

“I don’t understand,” Elena said, crossing her arms over her chest. “Stefan wanted Klaus dead, more than anything.”

Alana watched silently as Damon opened up a decanter and poured himself a stiff drink.

“That’s what we were counting on,” Elena finished with a sad little sigh. Alana shuffled forward and wrapped her arms around Elena’s waist, leaning her head onto her sister’s shoulder. Damon sighed also and turned to stare at the fire roaring in the fireplace.

“We blew it,” he said in a defeated tone. Elena let out a frustrated sigh and her entire body sagged against Alana.

“Where’s Katherine,” Alana asked as Elena rested her head on top of her older sister’s.

“She ran for the hills,” Damon said irritably. “Like usual, the minute things got bad. And who blames her?” Damon shook his head and moved around the couch. Alana noted that he was still holding the decanter even though he had poured his drink.

“Klaus would’ve crushed her,” Damon said, moving over to the twins. Elena sighed a little and moved out of Alana’s arms. She huffed, plopping down on the couch with her arms cross as she glared into the fire.

“I _had_ him,” Damon was still saying and he came up on Alana so that he could look her in the eyes. “I had Klaus. This could have all been over.”

And then Damon whirled around and threw the decanter angrily into the fire where it smashed against the wall of the fireplace. The fire flared up angrily, fed by the alcohol. Elena flinched violently at the sudden movement.

“Hey,” Alana said with caution, just the slightest bit irritated that Damon had wasted good liquor. “Damon, hey.” She moved forward to place a comforting hand on Damon’s arm, but he brushed her off irritably as he took a good gulp of his whiskey.

“ _Hey_ , listen to me.” Alana pulled on Damon’s arm and when he turned around she grabbed his face so that he could look at her. Her hands unconsciously moved to curl in his hair but she ignored it for the moment. Looking deeply into Damon’s oh-so-blue eyes she said, “We’ll survive this. Just like you guys have been surviving up until now.”

Damon shrugged and his gazed dropped to the floor for a moment.

“We’re never getting him back,” he said lowly and Elena made a small choking sound behind them. Damon’s eyes snapped back up and he looked over Alana’s head at Elena. “We’re never getting Stefan back,” he said to her. “You know that, don’t you?”

Elena let out a tiny sigh and Alana turned to look at the heartbreak that was spreading across her sister’s face.

“Then you’ll let him go,” she said, surprised at the words coming out of her own mouth. Elena jerked and her eyes snapped up to lock onto Alana’s. Alana thought about Stefan and how he had done whatever it was that he had done to save Damon and her resolve tightened.

“You’ll let him go,” she repeated in a steadier voice. She turned around to look Damon in the eyes again. “Both of you will have to let him go. Okay?”

Alana was surprised at the emotions that flashed across Damon’s face. She had never thought the sexy vampire could look so much like a kid who just lost his beloved puppy.

“Okay,” Elena whispered quietly, sounding a little teary. Damon nodded slowly also, his gaze dropping to the floor again. Alana grimaced and let go of his face a little reluctantly. A sudden ringing pierced through the silence and Damon’s hand shot to his pocket where he flipped out his phone.

“Not interested in a play by play of our failure right now, Katherine,” Damon said into the phone. Alana rolled her eyes but remained where she was so that she could hear whatever it was that Katherine had to say. She wondered vaguely if the vampire bitch was going to tell Damon about Stefan’s little heroic move.

“I’m just calling to say goodbye,” that familiar voice said on the other side of the phone. “I don’t know what to tell you. You had a good plan Damon. And that’s high praise coming for me.”

“That’s not very comforting at the moment,” Damon said his voice suspicious. Alana arched a brow questioningly but he just shook his head. “You’re going back into hiding,” he asked but it seemed like a question he already knew the answer to. There was silence for a little bit before the reply came.

“At least my life’s not boring,” Katherine said mockingly. “Goodbye, Damon.”

“Take care of yourself, Katherine,” Damon said back, although he still sounded suspicious. Alana then heard the tell-tale click and beep of a call ended.

“Katherine’s gone,” Damon said dully for Elena’s benefit. He gave Alana a deep probing look before shaking his head and wandering off. Alana stared after him, feeling a little sad for both him and Elena.

“What now,” Elena asked in a deadened tone.

Alana turned to look at her sister who didn’t appear to notice the silent tears streaming down her face.

“Now, we move on,” Alana told her gently. 

* * *

“You did what,” Alana whispered furiously into her phone. She glanced over her shoulder to make sure that Elena was still asleep. Elena murmured a little and snuggled her tear stained face into her pillow.

“I was just trying to protect her,” Tyler said defensively on the other end of the phone. “She wouldn’t have left and then Klaus would have killed her.”

“And you couldn’t have thought of a better way to do that,” Alana snapped sarcastically. She heard Tyler sigh on the other end of the line and she sighed with him. “Look, I get why you did it, I just think you may have went about it the wrong way.”

“It doesn’t matter now. Caroline doesn’t trust me anymore, anyways.”

“You guys didn’t break up,” Alana asked slowly, a frown sneaking across her face. She stared out the window at the inky blackness of the night. “Did you?”

“I don’t know,” Tyler said and he sounded very frustrated. “I tried to explain it to her but she just froze up on me. I don’t know what to do anymore.”

“Oh Ty,” Alana said with a sigh.

“I-I love her, Lala,” Tyler said brokenly, using the name he had come up with when they were two and he had had a lisp. “I don’t know what I’ll do if I lose her.”

Alana frowned at her reflection in the glass. She could just imagine the kicked dog look Tyler was currently sporting and she wished she was with him so that she could comfort him.

“Hey, good things come to those who wait,” she said, trying to be comforting but the words sounded hollow even to her own ears.

“I thought ‘It was better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all’ applied to this situation,” Tyler asked, sound a little bit more cheerful.

“No, I actually think it might be ‘If you love someone let them go and if they come back they’re yours to keep’.” Tyler actually chuckled a little, although it sounded kind of watery.

“Where do you come up with these,” he asked.

“I watch a lot of TV,” Alana told him seriously.


	8. Moving On

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keep moving forward, even when things are bleak.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is the second original chapter. I hope you all enjoy. I would also like to remind you all that while yes, most of this story is still following the show closely, I do have some things that will change because . . . well Alana is NOT Elena. Just be patient my grasshoppers.

_First you’re up, up, down, down_

_One day you’re in, the next you’re out_

_You wanna freak out? C’mon!_

_My Morning Jacket – You Wanna Freak Out_

_October 4, 2010 – Mystic Falls: Mystic Falls Forest_

_Monday_

Alana sucked in a deep breath as she ducked under the punch aimed for her head. It was a simply punch, something a toddler could dodge, but she had been fighting for the last hour and half and her body was tiring. So, even as she managed to dodge the attack, she could feel the air rushing past her cheek.

“Too slow,” Alaric said easily, not sounding the least bit winded. He came in with another attack, a soft blow to Alana’s shoulder that sent her to the ground. “Tired,” he asked as he looked down at her sprawled form.

Alana blew her long hair from out of her face and glared up at the man.

“You’re evil,” she complained after a moment. “Pure evil.”

Alaric chuckled deeply before holding out his hand. Alana glared up at him for a moment more before allowing the man to pull her up. She brushed off the leaves that clung to her yoga pants.

They were in the middle of the forest, just a couple miles out from the town square in an area usually used for Mystic Fall’s bonfires. The sun was just barely rising in the sky and the air was almost bitter cold. But Alana couldn’t really feel it, her skin was warmed from the work out she had been doing with Alaric.

Normally it was Elena that started these work outs – it was her only defense in trying to protect herself from Klaus. But this morning Elena was on a long run through town and Alana had decided it was her turn to spar with Alaric. Besides, training with Elena had been giving Alana a serious complex.

It was irritating how much stronger Elena was, but then again, with the life she had been leading so far . . . well it was kind of expected.

“Want to go again,” Alaric asked, drawing Alana from her thoughts. Alana drew in a deep breath and then took up the fighting stance he had taught her. It was a different stance from the one Blade had taught her and she was still adjusting.

“This sucks,” she complained even as she prepared herself from another attack.

“Well it’s not like you’re bad,” Alaric told her as he threw some quick jabs at her. She dodged them easily, holding her fist up like she was a boxer. “You certainly have a lot more upper body strength than Elena. We just need to work on your speed.”

“Yippie,” Alana panted, but she understood where Alaric was coming from. Her stamina was severally lacking and as it stood now she had no chance against a vampire. Although she vaguely wondered if Aikido worked against them. It was all about using the opponent’s strength against them.

“Concentrate,” Alaric warned as he clipped her lightly on the cheek. Alana winced at the contact before narrowing her eyes to better follow his movements. This went on for another thirty minutes, but her energy was going fast. Alaric was slowing down also, but more for her sake really. He didn’t look the least bit tired, which was highly irritating.

“Time,” she called after a moment, dropping her hands to her knees and leaning over to catch her breath.

“Alright, I think we’re done for the day,” Alaric’s voice said from above Alana. “We’ll pick up again tomorrow with some weapons training.”

“Oh what fun,” Alana said with more sarcasm than she really meant. She straightened up, flipping the few strands of hair that had come out of her ponytail out of her face. She wiped at the sweat clinging to her forehead as she watched Alaric gather his things.

“It shouldn’t be too bad,” Alaric told her calmly. “You’ve got a good handle on all this fighting stuff already.”

Alana could hear the question in Alaric’s voice but she shrugged instead of answering. She really didn’t need to get into the details of her life in New York.

Not with Alaric at least.

“Alright,” Alaric said on a sigh, letting it go. “Come on, let’s get you home in time for school.”

“Yuck.” Alana scrunched up her nose and stuck out her tongue. “I think that’s the worst thing you’ve said since we got here.”

Alaric’s laughter echoed all around them and Alana found herself joining in. 

* * *

 

Alana hummed quietly as she navigated the halls of the school. Her head would bop every now and then to the music blasting in her ears. But she controlled herself from bursting out into song. It was a habit she had, to sing whenever she heard music.

A thick arm suddenly draped itself over Alana’s shoulders, and she jolted in shock. She pulled one earphone out of her ear as she turned to glare at her chuckling best friend.

“Aren’t you supposed to be moping around like a love sick dog or something,” Alana asked as she nudged him in the side. “Instead of startling decent people.”

“I was, but that just made my day,” Tyler crooned loudly, drawing a couple of eyes. Alana glared at the two sophomores burrowing holes into her head. The girls blushed darkly before hurrying off.

Oh the power of being a senior.

“Glad I could be of help,” Alana commented dryly, turning her attention back to Tyler. They were walking down the hallway now, Alana clutched into Tyler’s side. Tyler was unnaturally hot, heat radiating off of him in waves. Alana soaked it all in like he was her own personal heater.

They entered the cafeteria together and got a table toward the back away from most people. A quick scan of the room turned up no sign of Elena or any of the Team Vamp crew. Not that Alana was surprised. Lunch time seemed to have turned into scheme time.

Alana pulled out a plastic container that had left over lasagna. It was cold but still good. As she opened it she asked, “So how are things with Caroline?”

“We haven’t really talked all that much,” Tyler admitted with a shrug, playing absently with the lid of Alana’s container. “She just . . . doesn’t understand. And she doesn’t trust me.”

“Well can you blame her?” Tyler gave Alana a betrayed look. “Oh, don’t look at me like that, that’s not what I meant. I mean, she knows how horrible Klaus can be first hand. For you to be sired to him is a hard pill to swallow. And not everyone can be as objective about a situation as I can. So you’re gonna have to give her a little slack on this one.”

Tyler sighed heavily and Alana patted him on the back. She knew Tyler would think about her words, but he was in his sad stage now. Sooner or later that was going to turn into angry stage; Alana could only hope that he wouldn’t do something stupid when that hit.

Alana chewed thoughtfully on her lasagna before an idea hit her.

“Hey, how about we do something fun this weekend?”

“Like,” Tyler asked skeptically.

“Well,” Alana drawled, twirling her fork in the air. “Ric says he’s willing to give me my room back. We can paint it like we did in eighth grade.”

“How is that supposed to be fun?”

“Well I was thinking about painting the walls black and, like, splashing a bunch of other colors around.” Alana mimicked a splashing motion with her hands and then grinned stupidly at the thought.

“That does sound cool,” Tyler agreed slowly. “Only one problem: I haven’t been invited in and I don’t think your sister will want me to be.”

Here Alana rolled her eyes.

“Well I say you’re invited into my house,” Alana told him. “So there you go. Unless I have to actually be at the door to invite you in . . .” Alana trailed off, a question in her brown eyes.

“Naw, I think that will do it,” Tyler said with a wide grin.

“Awesome. So you’re coming with me to pick out the paints, right?”

Tyler made a face. “Do I have to?”

“Yes!” 

* * *

 

_Tuesday_

Alana hummed lowly, shifting side to side as she turned the spoon slowly in the large bowl. The smell of chocolate was thick in the air, wafting upward from the oven where a third batch of chocolate chip cookies were baking. The first two batches sat on the island, piled high on a glass serving dish.

“Going a little overboard there, aren’t you?”

Alana nearly jumped out of her skin at the voice that sounded right by her ear. She let out a squeak and her hand jerked, flinging some cookie batter onto the counter.

She whirled around with a glare on her face. No one made her waste cookie batter!

Damon was leaning against the island, looking as if he had been there all along. He gave Alana his patented smirk and reached for a cookie.

“God dammit! What is with people and scaring me,” Alana growled, turning back around and mixing the batter with a little more strength than needed.

“Well,” Damon drawled. “It’s fun.”

“Leave her alone,” a voice said from the doorway. Alana looked over to see Elena walking into the kitchen. “She’s stressed enough as is.”

“I’m not stressed,” Alana protested. The oven beeped and she pushed Damon out of the way so that she could reach the oven mitts. As she pulled them out she caught sight of Damon trying to dip his fingers into the bowl.

Alana glared at him and swatted his hand away, but not before he managed to get a huge chunk out of the bowl.

“Stop being a nuisance.”

Elena came to Alana’s rescue, grabbing Damon’s arm and pulling him out of the way. As Alana bent to pull the finished cookies from the oven, she caught sight of Damon grinning cockily at Elena and standing way too close to be comfortable. Elena certainly looked uncomfortable, but she didn’t move back.

It was in these moments that Alana really wanted to know what was between the two. It was obvious that Damon liked Elena – maybe even loved her, but what was going on in Elena’s head?

Alana frowned thoughtfully, scooping the cookies onto a cooling rack. She felt someone come up behind her, felt the body heat radiating into her back, and glanced over her shoulder to see Damon looming over her.

“What,” she snapped with more irritation than she meant. She tried to elbow him out of the way, but it was like hitting a wall. “ _Move_.”

Damon paused, his body pressed up against Alana, before he finally moved away. Alana wrinkled her nose, squashing down her body’s physical reaction to the vampire’s presence.

Stupid hormones.

“So why all the baking, if you’re not stressed,” Elena asked as she started helping Alana scoop cookie dough onto the baking tray. She arched her brow at Alana before asking, sarcastically, “Bake sale?”

“Ha, ha,” Alana muttered. “I’ll have you know that baking can be very therapeutic and sometimes I like the monotony of the action.”

“I.E. stressed,” Elena quipped.

Alana rolled her eyes, knocking her hip into her sister’s. “Or not.”

“Seriously though?”

Alana sighed at the concern she could see swimming in Elena’s dark eyes. As much as she denied it, Elena could always see right through her, no matter that they hadn’t been near each other in the last year and a half.

“It’s nothing much. Just . . . settling. Coping. Adjusting.” Alana lifted and dropped her shoulder in a shrug. “Whichever verb you want. Take your pick.”

“If you say so,” Elena said skeptically, knocking her shoulder companionably against Alana’s.

“Aren’t you two so twins-y,” Damon commented, breaking into the sister moment. Alana’s eye twitched but she refrained from glaring at Damon, this time. Honestly she glared at the vampire more than she glared at anyone in her whole life. He was just so . . . annoying sometimes.

“Have you been drinking,” Elena asked suddenly. Alana opened her mouth to complain even though she had had _one_ drink earlier that morning, but then she realized that Elena was talking to Damon.

Well that was embarrassing.

Alana turned to look at Damon as he shrugged, no bothering to deny or confirm.

“You have, haven’t you?”

“It’s his coping mechanism,” Alana commented as she slid the final tray into the oven. She turned to pick up the empty bowl and dropped it into the sink. “You should pick up baking,” she added, shooting Damon a look as she filled the bowl with water.

“I’ll leave that to you,” Damon shot back, blandly, waving his hand at the overflowing tray of cookies.

“I don’t hear anyone complaining.”

“Definitely not me,” Elena added as she reached for a cookie. She bit into it and closed her eyes in pure bliss. Alana’s lip quirked into a smile, turning into a full blow grin when Elena said, “God I’ve missed your cookies.”

“They’re not all that great,” Damon shrugged, but Alana saw him reaching for another one anyways.

“They’re exceptional,” Elena said with a grin full of chocolate chips. The action made Alana remember simpler times, back when their parents were alive and she had first started baking. Even back then Elena claimed Alana made the best cookies in the entire world.

“Thanks El,” Alana said now, reached forward and curling her arm around her sister in a half hug. Elena returned the hug and reached for more cookies. 

* * *

 

Alana pushed Elena and Jeremy into the room, nearly toppling over them in the effort. The three stood just inside the doorway, not daring to travel any further.

“Why are we here,” Jeremy demanded, his voice tense. Elena looked just as tense next to him, her face carefully blank. Alana rolled her eyes at their behavior and pushed past them.

“Look. Alaric is giving me back my room, which means that he needs a place to stay. You two do want him to stay here, don’t you?” At this question they both nodded. “Good. So now we should probably clean out this room for him.”

“Why do _we_ have to do it,” Elena asked softly.

“Do you really want Alaric to be the one to pack this stuff away?”

Alana watched carefully as a bunch of emotions flickered over Elena’s face before she slowly shook her head.

“So that means we have to do it.” Neither Elena nor Jeremy moved an inch. “Come on guys, if I can do this so can you. And I’m the one that ran away, remember?”

Jeremy took in a deep breath before stepping forward.

“Alana’s right,” he said, turning to face Elena. “After everything we’ve been through, we can do this.” Elena looked around, her expression torn.

“Okay,” she finally agreed. “But we’ll put everything in the attic. We’re not selling anything. Not yet.”

“Of course not,” Alana said in an affronted tone. Together, in mostly silence the three siblings packed up their parents’ room. The mood was rightfully somber, something Alaric immediately picked up on when he arrived more than an hour later. He simply stood in the doorway and said nothing, letting them do what they needed to.

“Hey Alaric,” Elena greeted when they were done. Alana stood up, dusted off her hands, and then walked over to him.

“Sup, dude,” she said and gave him a salute. “So we’re done in here, so you can like paint it or redecorate or whatever.”

“Are you sure,” Alaric asked, looking over the three of them.

“Yeah,” Jeremy was the one to answer. And since he was the most sensitive towards this stuff out of the three of them his answer was the most important.

“I’m going to buy a bunch of paints tomorrow, want me to get you anything,” Alana asked as she walked past him.

“Uh, not really.”

“Blue it is then,” Alana said with a sage nod. “Anyone else feel up to pizza and a movie.” And then she was walking down the stairs, pulling out her phone to call the pizza guy.

“She just moves at her own pace, doesn’t she,” Alaric commented when she had disappeared.

“Yup. But you gotta admit, it’s kind of fun,” Jeremy told him with a grin.

“And definitely a nice change to things,” Elena added.

“True, very true,” the teacher agreed 

* * *

 

_Wednesday_

Alana was waiting outside of the paint shop for Tyler when her phone rang. She glanced down at the caller ID to see that it was the teen she was waiting for. She tapped the screen and then lifted the phone to her ear.

“Where are you,” she demanded.

“Is that any way to answer the phone,” Tyler asked on the other line.

“It is when the person calling is more than thirty minutes late,” Alana snapped.

“I’m sorry, honestly,” Tyler told her, and he sounded pretty apologetic. “But I forgot that I had promised to hang out with Jeremy already.”

“You’re hanging out with Jer,” Alana asked skeptically, wrapping one arm around her waist and leaning against the building behind her. She arched her brow questioningly at an old lady staring at her until the woman turned away and continued her stroll down the walkway.

“Well yeah. I figured he’d probably need a little man to man. And we’re kinda in the same situation here.”

“But you’re the one that broke up with Caroline,” Alana pointed out. “If you guys are even broken up that is. Isn’t that what happens when you give an ultimatum and the person doesn’t follow through?”

“We didn’t break up. We’re just having . . . a disagreement. And the point is Jeremy and I are both having girl problems. It’s a guy thing.”

Alana rolled her eyes. “Fine. Guess I’ll just find someone else. Have fun with your man-on-man bonding or whatever.” Alana hung up before Tyler could say any more. She sighed and looked out over the street.

Even though it was only Wednesday, there were a large amount of people milling about, buddle up in their autumn best. Alana rubbed at her arms as a particularly vicious breeze swept past her. She chewed thoughtfully on the idea of buying all the paint by herself, but the thought of having to carry it all home alone wasn’t really appealing to her.

In the distance she could see the familiar faces of Bonnie and Caroline walking toward the shopping center.

Alana stood up straighter and began waving them over, her arm stretched high and a wide, slightly forced, grin straining her cheeks.

“Hey guys,” she greeted when they were both within ear shot. They looked just the slightest bit uncomfortable, but Alana figured that was just the guilt still settling between them. It had to be incredibly awkward trying to be friends with a person they pretty much ignored for ten years.

Alana pushed her own resentment over the situation aside for the moment and asked, “Are you doing anything important right now?”

The two shared a look between them before Bonnie shrugged.

“Not really,” she said. “Why?”

“Oh, well then, I want to enlist you in the Alana Ultimate Room Makeover Project.”

“You’re painting your room,” Caroline asked when she managed to put the pieces together. A grin stretched her face, excitement lighting up her cheeks. Alana was happy to know that she had Caroline pinned like that; the blonde never turned down a makeover project.

“Awesome. I’d love to help – Wait, don’t you share a room with Elena?”

“Not at all,” Alana told the blonde with a wag of her finger. “Aunt Jen’s room was originally mine and Alaric has kindly decided to give it back.”

An awkward silence settled over the three as they remembered Jenna. Alana was slowly getting over the fact that she was dead, but she could tell that Bonnie and Caroline didn’t know what to say to her about it. They didn’t know that Jenna had come back to say bye to her.

“Oh, what color are you painting it,” Bonnie asked, a little stilted.

Alana grinned widely, mostly a show of teeth, before sweeping her arm out and gesturing for the two to enter the paint shop. After a brief moment of hesitation, the girls entered, Alana bringing up the rear.

“The idea is Rainbow,” Alana explained as she guided the two toward the back where the small paint cans were. “I want every color I can get my hands on. I’m thinking a black background and then multi-color splashes. I’m going for the artistic vibe.”

Caroline was nodding along, her face pulled into a thoughtful expression. “Yes, I see that working, but we should keep it chic. Let’s see, turquoise, sea green, and emerald for the greens. And Cerulean, teal and —”

“Denim,” Alana cut in, picking up a large can as she passed by it.

“I’m pretty sure you don’t need that much of the denim,” Bonnie pointed out when Alana grabbed another large can.

“I’m trying to get Alaric to repaint our parent’s room,” Alana told her vaguely as she looked around for a cart. She found one pushed off to the side and placed the two cans in it before grabbing a third can. “It’ll be too much ‘them’ if we keep it the way it is now.”

“Good point. We should mix that with this dark green for him,” Caroline added, pulling out another large can from a separate isle.

“Hmm, this is going to cost a lot,” Alana said, eyeing what they had so far, and that was only for Alaric’s room. “Oh well. Onward and forward, to the purples we go.” 

* * *

 

“Isn’t this much,” Alaric asked skeptically as he looked at the four cans Alana lined up on the floor in front of him. They had moved all of the large furniture into the middle of the room and covered it with a plastic tarp.

Alaric thought it made everything look like someone had died. But that could be his morbid side talking. Mystic Falls seemed to bring that out of a lot of people.

“It’s a big room,” Alana told him a very chipper voice. Alaric was starting to wonder if she was just a little bit bipolar. Her emotions had been all over the place this week – and she had been cooking a lot, which according to Elena and Jeremy was a huge indicator of her stress level.

Alana bent down and started prying open one of the lids.

“Is this another outlet for you,” Alaric found himself asking before he could think about it. Alana froze, the lid half popped open so that the smell of paint drifted up into Alaric’s nose. After a moment she shook herself, dropping the lid onto the ground and tipped the can so that paint poured into the tray laid out before her. She grabbed a roller and turned to grin at Alaric.

“Are you ready?”

Alaric looked from her to the denim paint and back before sighing and picking up his own roller. He dipped it into the paint and started on the nearest wall.

It was silent for a long moment as they worked, the sound of birds chirping drifting in from the open window.

“I’m learning to deal,” Alana said suddenly. Alaric paused, turning to look at her but she was staring determinedly at the wall in front of her. Her brush stroke were very precise and Alaric felt she was talking more to the wall than him.

“You guys have to give me a little slack. I just got here. I haven’t been in all this craziness.”

“True,” Alaric said slowly, starting up with the painting again to put her more at ease. “You’re handling it better than I expected so I forget that you’ve only just found out about everything.”

“That and sometimes you think I’m Elena.” Alaric’s head snapped over to look at her. She shrugged. “It’s okay. Everyone does at some point or another, so I don’t blame you.”

Alaric frowned, wondering at the bitter undertone he heard in Alana’s voice.

“You asked me before, about why I left,” Alana said slowly. She bent down to run the roller threw the paint and started on another patch of the wall. “I trust you a little now to tell you why.” Alana’s eyes darted over to his for a moment. “Keep painting. We have a lot of wall to cover.”

Alaric made a show of gathering more paint and starting on a new area. It was a moment before Alana said anything.

“When I was in the seventh grade, I broke my leg,” she began, her voice whimsical with a shade of righteous anger. “I was stuck at home for two weeks and no one came to visit me. I couldn’t understand why. I had friends after all. At least, I thought I did.”

She let out a low sigh, dropping the roller and moving to pick up a paint brush. She started painting around the wall moldings with a careful hand.

“When I got back to school, I found out why. It was only a little bit at first. I thought it was a simple mistake, our names are similar and we _are_ identical. But somehow, people had forgotten about me. I was suddenly Elena to them, like we had combined bodies. Only Elena was more popular, more well-known and so people remembered her more.”

Alana’s hand stilled and her voice dropped. She whispered to the wall, “And just like that, I vanished from the eyes of Mystic Falls.”

Alaric didn’t know what to think about that. He imagined that it had to have been incredibly lonely to suddenly wake up in a town that seemed to have forgotten her. It must have been very easy to leave if that was the case. No one to miss you except the family.

“So you left,” Alaric finished when the silence grew.

“Not at first,” Alana told him. She let out a loud sigh, dropping the brush onto the painting tray and picking up the roller. Half the wall was done now, well at least the bottom half. Alaric walked over to take over the taller spaces.

“So, what did you do?”

“I played along,” Alana said casually with a shrug. At Alaric’s confused expression she elaborated. “Well, people thought I was Elena, so I let them. What else was I supposed to do? To them Alana Gilbert didn’t exist.”

“And your parents allowed this?”

“Of course not,” Alana said with a snort and a roll of her eyes. “But they were just as powerless in this situation as I was.”

“So, you played along and then what? Someone had to have noticed you weren’t Elena. You two aren’t exactly similar in personality.”

“Ah, but I’m a very good Elena impersonator,” Alana told him in an almost proud voice. “Haven’t you wondered why Klaus hasn’t realized I existed yet?”

Alaric had to admit, the thought had crossed his mind a couple of times. It has been a stroke of luck that Alana could blend in so easily, but now he knew that it wasn’t luck. It was practice.

“So you played Elena? That had to be annoying after a while. And didn’t she date Matt? How did that work out?”

“A man who knows how to ask the right questions,” Alana sang, her voice too light for this conversation. She was like Damon in that aspect. She covered her pain with jokes and casual undertones.

“I suppose I was lucky enough that Matthew was one of the few people outside of this town that remembered I existed. Of course, that was only after he started dating Elena. We were never really friends, per say, but he made the effort to not confuse us.”

“But otherwise he ignored you,” Alaric asked skeptically. “Matt didn’t strike me as that type.”

“He didn’t really ignore me, but he didn’t actively seek me out,” Alana corrected. “Anyways, you’re right it did become annoying after a while. I was itching to skip town. And then my parents died. It was so very easy to leave after that.”

“I bet it was,” Alaric agreed, his tone somber.

“I lie,” Alana said after a moment. “I mean, it was easy, but it was extremely hard to leave El, Jer, and Aunt Jen. They were all I had left after all. But it was - have you ever felt like you were drowning or suffocating being in one place?”

“Yes, every day after my wife disappeared,” Alaric told her lowly.

“Oh yeah. Isobel. You’re ex-wife-that-Damon-turned-into-a-vampire-and-who-also-happened-to-be-my-mom.” Alana then shook her head and let out a low chuckle. “Sometimes the US can be so small.”

“Isn’t that the truth,” Alaric agreed, turning his full attention back to painting. 

* * *

 

_Thursday_

 Alana eyed her room from the doorway. Alaric hadn’t left much stuff in there and everything that had been Aunt Jenna’s was already gone. But the furniture had to go if she wanted to paint all four walls. Only problem was, where the hell to put it when she painted. She could just pile it in the middle of the room like she had done when she had painted the master bedroom. It was just too much stuff.

“What are you doing?”

Alana nearly jumped out of her skin at the question and she glared at Damon from over her shoulder.

“Looking at the room, duh.”

“Why,” Damon asked in an almost patient tone.

“I’m repainting but I can’t figure out what the hell to do with all this stuff,” she complained, waving her hand at the bulky furniture.

“Well normally when you paint you move the furniture out of the room,” Damon told her in a patronizing tone.

“I’m not an idiot,” Alana said with a roll of her eyes. “I just don’t know how I’m going to move it or where I’m going to put it.”

“Sounds like a personal problem. Do you know where Ric is?”

“I just got a brilliant idea,” Alana said and she whirled around and dropped her hands onto Damon’s shoulders. “You can move this all for me.”

“No, I can’t,” Damon said, brushing her hands off. “I’m busy.”

“You always say that,” Alana said with a pout. “Please,” she then begged, batting her eyes. Damon eyed her for a moment before sighing.

“Fine. But you owe me.”

“Oh you’re so awesome,” Alana cheered, hugging him quickly. He smelled like leather and alcohol. “Now, we should probably move this to the garage.”

Damon grumbled something under his breath but Alana chose to ignore him, still grinning like an idiot. She knew she had to look the slightest bit crazy, especially with how her moods had been flip flopping lately, but everyone dealt with stress differently.

“Are you going to help,” Damon asked as he moved past her holding one of her dressers. Alana arched a brow at her before looking pointedly at her skinny arms. Damon rolled his eyes before walking off, carrying the large dresser like it was a book.

Alana watched him walk away, her eyes trailing over his lean figure. She couldn’t be blamed for looking, Damon was hot and she was only human. Still, she felt the slightest bit guilty. This was the vampire that was in love with her twin. The vampire Elena also had a very complicated relationship with that Alana still didn’t understand.

Alana sighed, shaking the thoughts away before turning to look into her room. She spotted a couple of things she could pick up herself. With a small sigh, she got to work. 

* * *

 

Alana danced her way around the room, her head banging in beat to the iHome in the center of the room. The plastic covering the carpet crinkled under her feet as she started twirling around like a ballet dancer. She paused mid turn when someone cleared their throat by the door. Glancing over her shoulder she saw Elena, Bonnie, and Caroline looking on at her in amusement.

“Ah, wonderful,” Alana said smoothly and she pranced over to them. “My dutiful assistants have arrived.” The three girls snickered at her. “So ladies, grab a brush and head to your corners.

“Don’t you need primer,” Elena asked when she was handed a can of black paint.

“It’s black. Primers are for light colors,” Alana told her in a ‘duh’ tone. Elena stuck her tongue out before heading over to the wall with windows. Each window was already pulled all the way open and all the moldings were covered with blue tape.

“On your mark. Get set. Paint!”

They worked for over an hour, giggling madly and trying to catch each other with some paint. When they were done Alana had a black stripe on the back of her shirt, Elena was sporting some black fingerprints on her cheek, and Bonnie had smudges on her arm. Caroline was the only one paint free but that was because she had used her vampire speed.

“You have an unfair advantage,” Alana complained as she lay on her back on the floor. The wind from outside was drifting in through the windows, giving a chill to the room. The other girls were spread out around her, staring up at the blank ceiling.

“Do you think we could paint the ceiling too? It’s looking a little drab,” Alana said, tilting her head at an angle as if she was trying to get a different look at the ceiling.

“Uh, maybe some other day,” Elena told her. “I’m exhausted.”

“I’m glad we did this,” Bonnie piped up. “I didn’t think you’d ever want to be friends with us after how we treated you.”

“Forgive and forget is my motto,” Alana chirped. “Life’s too sure and all that good stuff.”

“You’re so cool,” Caroline said suddenly, jumping to her feet. “Elena why didn’t you tell us your sister was cool?”

“What,” Elena asked with wide eyes and she also jumped to her feet. “I so did tell you she was cool. You weren’t listening to me.”

“Aww, I feel so loved,” Alana cooed with a wide grin. 

* * *

 

_Friday_

Alana peeked her head around the corner of the room, catching sight of her sister laid out on her bed with a number of books surround her. She straightened up slowly, entering the room completely.

Elena looked up, a question on her face and a pencil tapping against her chin.

“Sup sister dearest,” Alana greeted, jumping onto the bed beside Elena. “How goes this thing people call studying?”

“Slow going, not that you’d know anything about that,” Elena said with a grin. She moved some of the papers out of the way so that Alana could stretch out beside her.

“It’s not my fault that I have a photographic memory. I got the lucky gene.” Elena rolled her eyes, before pulling a book forward. From the looks of it, Alana guess it was science.

“Oh physics,” Alana sang off key. “I love thee as much as I hate thee.”

“Shut up,” Elena laughed, pushing at Alana’s shoulder. “I’m trying to concentrate.”

“You know, we don’t really need physics. It’s not like we’re going to be scientist or anything like that,” Alana told her in a sage tone.

“Well I don’t think the teachers care about what we’re going to be when we grow up,” Elena muttered dryly. Alana hummed her agreement, turning over so that she was lying on her back. She stared up at the sticky residue left over from the glow-in-the-dark stars that used to litter the ceiling.

“Something on your mind,” Elena asked after a long moment. She pushed away her books and turned to look at her sister fully.

“No,” Alana said slowly, looking at her sister with suspicion shining in her dark eyes. “Why?”

Elena let out a long sigh before saying, “Come on. Even Damon has noticed how bipolar you’ve been lately and he’s been pretty much drunk all week.”

Alana rolled her eyes, propping herself up on her elbows. “Well you’re all overthinking things. I’m one hundred percent okay.”

“Even with all the craziness going on,” Elena asked, her tone suggesting some deeper question.

“I like crazy,” Alana said decisively. Elena stared at her meaningfully for a long moment before Alana let out a loud sigh and flopped back on the bed. “Fine! I didn’t want to ask but this has been driving me crazy!”

“And it is,” Elena asked, nudging Alana when she didn’t say anything more.

“What’s up with you and Damon?” From the way Elena’s mouth dropped open, Alana could tell that wasn’t the question her twin had been expecting.

“What do you mean,” she asked slowly.

“Well,” Alana drawled, turning her eyes to stare up at the ceiling. “He obviously likes you and I know you know that he likes you. But you’re not one to string people along, so? What’s up?”

Elena shifted uncomfortably beside Alana, turning until she was on her back staring up at the ceiling also. She moved her head until it touched Alana’s, bring back memories of when they used to do this in the wee hours of the night before their parents died.

“Did Damon ever mention that he got bitten by a werewolf,” Elena asked softly.

“He glossed over it.”

“Well, we didn’t know Klaus’s blood could cure a werewolf bite and we all thought Damon was dying. So I did something I shouldn’t have,” Elena confessed and Alana could hear the guilt in her voice.

“Lemme guess, you gave him a parting kiss,” Alana asked dryly with a low chuckle. Elena was silent for a long moment and Alana realized that she had hit the nail right on the head. She turned over, propping herself up so that she could look her twin dead in the face.

“You did _not_ ,” she demanded, her eyes wide in shock.

“I thought he was dying,” Elena told her defensively.

“So, what? You kiss him and then he ends up living and now you don’t know how to tell him it was a pity kiss?”

“I knew you’d call it that,” Elena commented lowly with a deep sigh. “I didn’t mean to but he’s been through so much lately.”

“So have you,” Alana exclaimed. “Elena, you can’t string him along like this. That’s just plain cruel. He think you have some kind of feelings for him and if you don’t clear things up he’s going to do something you’re not going to like.”

“No he’s not,” Elena protested. “He knows how I feel about Stefan.”

“Well Stefan is pretty much AWOL,” Alana said a little harshly. “That gives Damon free rein to do whatever the hell he wants.” Elena was finally looking a little worried, she was biting down on her bottom lip as she stared up at the ceiling.

“You have to set things straight,” Alana said again, firmly. “If he’s been through a lot then he doesn’t need this on his plate also. 

* * *

 

Alana stared Damon down, daring him to leave. In one hand he had a paint brush, in the other a small can of orange paint. He looked around at the others crowded in the room. Jeremy was gazing curiously at his can, Alaric was looking around with confusion, and the three cheerleaders – Bonnie, Caroline, and Elena – we holding a bunch of cans with large smiles stretching their faces.

“Why am I here,” Damon asked, turning his attention back to Alana.

“Because I need all the hands I can get,” Alana told him with a roll of her eyes.

“I’m not helping you paint,” Damon protested, putting the can of paint on the floor.

“Oh come on! Don’t be a spoil sport,” Alana told him, echoing words he had once said to her. Damon stared at her and she stared back. Finally after a minute Damon broke.

“You owe me two,” he said as he picked the can back up.

“Yay! Okay, so we’re not painting, strictly speaking. More like splattering. Just make a big mess really.”

“You mean like this,” Jeremy popped open his can, dipped the brush in, then fanned the brush at Alana, scattering drops of bright purple all over her. Alana gasped and stared down at herself before glaring at him.

“Oh, you are so asking for it,” she said, grabbing up a can for herself.

And so the war began. Paint flying everywhere, hitting both wall and people alike. In fact, it was getting more on everyone else than the actual walls, not that anyone really cared. Alana was super proud when she managed to dunk and entire can of turquoise over Damon’s head.

Overall, it was a very productive week, in Alana’s opinion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is taking so long guys. I just did something in one of the chapters to create a canon divergence and now I'm desperately trying to fix the "problem". That being said. I have a couple of other chapters already written and I'm gonna try (TRY) to post at least once a month. Don't hold me to that. I am still a college student and classes start next week.
> 
> But I hope you enjoy this!


	9. The New Deal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And we thought starting over would be easy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because I'm an awesome person, I'll give you a treat to help you out this April Fool's Day. Also this is my birthday month so I'm feeling super giving! Enjoy!

_Your kiss is like whiskey_

_It gets me drunk_

_And I wake up in the morning_

_With the taste of your tongue_

_3OH!3 ft. Ke$ha – My First Kiss_

_October 15, 2010 – Mystic Falls_

Alana jogged leisurely through good old Mystic Falls, the sounds of 3 Doors Down blasting loudly in her ears. Her head bobbed slightly to the music and her feet pounded rhythmically against the pavement. Slowing to a stop, Alana breathed heavily and leaned over, bracing her hands on her knees. Her heart felt like it might jump right out of her chest.

She glanced at her wrist to check her time. It proclaimed that she had been running for eighty-three minutes. That was about ten minutes longer than yesterday.

Alana smiled at her time. She was already getting back into her groove. And all it had taken was the threat of a crazy vampire-werewolf hybrid.

Shaking her head at the thought, Alana turned around to head back home – only to stop short when she spotted a large guy in a hoodie jogging towards her. It didn’t take much thought for her to turn back around and continued to jog – despite the protesting of her muscles. She hoped she was being just a little bit paranoid and hoodie dude wasn’t actually following her. Chancing a glance over her shoulder, Alana saw that she wasn’t, unless the guy had the same jogging pattern she did. And that was highly unlikely seeing as she had been running this pattern for three weeks.

Turning a corner sharply, Alana broke out into a sprint, hoping that upping the speed would get the stalker off her tail. She turned again around Mrs. Holly’s house and looked over her shoulder.

There was no one there.

Jolting to a stop, Alana looked up and down the sidewalk. Embarrassment was starting to pour into her now as she thought that maybe she had overreacted a tiny bit.

Alana took a deep breath to calm her heart and then turned around to finally head back home. She was thinking about a nice hot shower when she nearly ran right into someone who had been standing behind her. Alana stumbled back in shock and a trickle of fear ran through her when she recognized hoodie dude.

He tugged down his hood and pulled the headphones out of his ears.

“Excuse me,” he said, breathing deeply. He pinned Alana with a pair of grassy green eyes. “Should have been watching where I was going.”

“N-no, it’s okay,” Alana whispered, her eyes wide. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Have a nice day.” The guy smiled and then took off with his jogging once more. Alana watched him go, her eyes narrowed suspiciously. She didn’t believe for one minute that they guy had just been enjoying a nice stroll. 

* * *

 

“I think I’m being followed.”

Damon slowly set down the large glass of orange juice mixed with vodka and stared at her, but Alana was looking at Alaric. The teacher frowned, setting aside the papers he had been trying to grade so that he could give Alana his full attention.

“Huh,” he asked. Alana sighed and gave the man the full story.

“This isn’t good,” Alaric immediately said when she was done. He leaned back in his chair, his brows drawn together in both thought and worry. “Klaus could still be watching us. We’re going to have to be a lot more careful.”

“Well I can’t exactly live in a bubble,” Alana protested, immediately catching on to what Alaric wasn’t saying. “And I can’t pretend to be Elena for the rest of my life. Sooner or later Klaus is going to realize that there are two of us.”

“Maybe you should leave again,” Elena, who had shown up halfway through the tale, suggested timidly. The look Alana sent her could have frozen lava.

“I’m not going to skip town knowing that you and Jer are in trouble. And I’m insulted that you’d even think I would.”

“Well you can’t expect me to sit by and let you be pulled into this craziness either,” Elena argued back.

“El,” Alana said warningly.

“You’re only older by seven minutes, so don’t pull that on me,” Elena snapped. The two girls glared at each other, willing the other to back down.

“Elena, we can’t do that anyways,” Alaric interjected in a placating tone. “Even if Alana hadn’t come to Mystic Falls, Klaus still could have found her. She’s a lot safer here where we can watch over her.”

“We don’t know that,” Elena said stubbornly, but she backed down anyways.

“Look,” Alana said softly, placing her hand on Elena’s arm. “I’ll be careful. I’ll play you for a couple of days, but when it comes down to it, I’m not going to hide.”

“Fine,” Elena said before standing up suddenly.

“Where are you going,” Alana asked in alarm.

“I came here to meet Bonnie,” her twin said and then walked off with a huff. Alana watched her go before turning around and grabbing at one of Damon’s drinks.

“Well I’m glad someone’s decided to join me,” Damon said cheerfully. “This bore is doing homework.”

“This may come as a shock,” Alaric said with a roll of his eyes. “But I’m not here to hang out with you. I’m here to see Jeremy. Who is,” Alaric paused to glance at a clock and sighed, “an hour late for his shift.”

“Is he now,” Alana muttered, swiping another one of Damon’s drinks.

“Kids today,” Damon said almost mockingly and he glared at Alana. “Where are their values?” Alana grinned cheekily and downed the glass. Alaric rolled his eyes at their antics before picking up a packet and tossing it into their view.

“That’s his midterm paper.” Alana pulled the paper closer, her eyebrows shooting upward that the large red ‘F’ displayed at the top. “Copied it right off the internet. Didn’t even try to hide it.”

“Oo,” Damon sounded. “Somebody’s getting grounded.”

“I wouldn’t worry about it,” Alana piped in. “Jer’s just going through a rough patch. Give him some time and he’ll be fine.”

“Did you say you’re waiting for Jeremy, as in Jeremy Gilbert,” the bartender asked, walking over to them as she gave Damon his new drink.

“Yeah,” Alaric said.

“He was fired last week,” the girl said with an apologetic expression. Alana really didn’t appreciate the look Alaric sent her then. What right did he have to question her on her older sibling skills?

“Oops,” Damon mocked.

“You’re going to tell Elena,” Alana said accusingly when Alaric started searching the Grill of her twin. “You don’t really have to. Jeremy’s fine.” And she knew this because Tyler had told her that he had been hanging out with her little brother.

“Forgive me for saying this,” Alaric told her in a hard voice. “But you haven’t exactly been there for him as of late.” The man then got up, having no clue how hard his words had hit Alana.

“Harsh,” Damon intoned.

“Oh, shut up,” Alana grumbled and snatched up his drink again. 

* * *

 

“Jeremy, the minute you get this call me,” Elena growled into the phone. She stabbed at the end key before whirling around. “Unbelievable!”

Alana glared down into her glass as she felt Elena’s disapproving eyes bore into the side of her head.

“You’re feisty when you’re mad,” Damon told her as he turned away from the dart board where he had been throwing darts.

“It’s not that I’m mad,” Elena said, although the scowl on her face said otherwise. “I’m just – I’m worried.”

“Why,” Damon questioned. “So, he lost his job at the Grill. I think he’ll survive Elena.”

“He’s spiraling,” Elena told him. “Ever since Bonnie broke up with him he’s been moody. He’s not really talking to anyone.”

“He’s talking to me,” Alana muttered lowly, slouching down in her seat as she cradled her glass.

“It’s typical teenager.”

“Who’s seeing ghosts,” Elena countered. “Who lost everyone he cares about?”

“Not everyone,” Damon told her, turning around and gearing up to shoot the next dart. “He still has you two.”

“That he does,” Alana said loudly this time so that Elena could hear her. “And sure he’s a little moody now but he’ll survive this. You should show a little more faith in him.”

“Maybe,” Elena admitted before walking off. Alana was pretty sure her twin was about to turn the town upside down looking for their little brother. Sighing, she let the other girl go. There was just no stopping Elena once she had a mission in mind.

Alana sat there for a while longer, watching Damon pelt the pour dart board with darts.

“Hey, you okay,” she asked him after a while.

“What makes you think I’m not okay,” Damon asked her nonchalantly.

“Well,” Alana drawled as she slowly got up. “You’re day drunk.”

“You’ve stolen most of my drinks,” Damon told her, walking away from the dart board and closer towards her.

“I stole a couple. The point is, you’ve had more than me and you’re not exactly in a party mood. Let’s just say this isn’t you’re most attractive look.”

“Huh. What is my most attractive look?” He was standing in Alana’s personal bubble now, giving her his signature smirk.

“I’m not going to answer that one,” Alana told him, keeping her stance even though he was standing so close. She could smell all the alcohol on him, but seeing as she had been drinking also, it wasn’t that overbearing.

“Don’t mind me,” a voice said and Alana whirled around with her heart in her throat. The man leaning against the bar was very attractive, but the smile he gave them did not make him look all that friendly. It was the accent, however, that allowed Alana to identify him.

“Klaus,” she breathed, finally being faced with the man that had been terrorizing her family and friends.

“You’re going to do this in the Grill? In front of everyone,” Damon asked, stepping subtly in front of Alana as a shield. “It’s a little beneath you, don’t you think?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Klaus said. “I just came down to my local pub to grab a drink with a mate.” And he turned to the man that stood behind him. Alana’s blood ran cold when she recognized hoodie dude.

“Get a round in, would you Tony,” Klaus said with a smile and the man nodded before giving Alana a knowing look.

“I’m surprised you stuck around town long enough for Happy Hour,” Damon muttered.

“My sister seems to be missing,” Klaus told him, his tone going immediately from casual to angry. “Need to sort that out.”

“Cute? Blonde bombshell? Psycho?” Damon listed. “Mustn’t be too hard to find.”

“Truth is,” Klaus said, walking closer to them. “I’ve grown to rather like you’re little town.” He smiled and then snatched the dart from Damon’s hand. “Think I might fancy a home here.” Damon grimaced which seemed to make Klaus’s mood brighter.

“I imagine you’re wondering, how does this affect you,” the hybrid was saying conversationally. “The answer is: not in the slightest. As long as I get what I want and everyone behaves themselves you can go on living your little lives as you choose. You have my word.”

Alana stared into those cold green eyes and wondered what the hell she had gotten herself into. “What more could you possibly want,” she asked him, slipping on her Elena mask.

“Well for starters,” the hybrid said, moving close so that their faces were together. “You can tell me where I might find Stefan.”

“Stefan skipped town the second he saved your ass,” Damon told him, moving once more so that he was between Alana and Klaus. Alana let him because that was what Elena would do.

“Well you see that is a shame,” Klaus told him and then turned around and threw the dart. It hit dead center with an ominous sounding thud. Alana noticed that the dart was sunken into the board more than it should me. A whole lot more.

“Your brother stole from me,” Klaus growled, his eyes riveted on Damon. “I need him found so that I can take back what’s mine.”

“That sounds like a Klaus and Stefan problem,” Alana said and hoped she wasn’t pushing the boundaries of Elena’s personality. Klaus turned to her and started stalking forward but Damon moved smoothly to intercept him.

Klaus let out an amused chuckle but immediately flipped the switch to intimidating. “Well this is me broadening the scope, sweetheart.” Alana wondered vaguely if the guy was bipolar because the mood switching was getting old fast.

In the next moment Klaus walked away. Alana watched him with her eyes before grabbing a hold of Damon and dragging the vampire out of the Grill. She kept a clipped pace, heading towards her house. When she figured she was a safe enough distance away, she turned on the vampire.

“So that was Klaus,” she asked.

“What gave it away,” Damon bit out looking annoyed.

“Save the attitude,” Alana told him and paced restlessly. “Damn that was scary! Worse than my first night in New York. Fuck!”

“Having a mental breakdown,” Damon asked in a board manner.

“Shut up. That guy was creepy,” Alana muttered. She stopped pacing and took in a couple of calming breathes. “Okay,” she finally said. “Okay. So we’re being watched by hybrids and Stefan has made Klaus mad.”

“Sounds about right.”

“So now what,” Alana asked and for that Damon had no response.

Alana’s pocket let out a loud chirp, cutting into the sudden silence that had fallen. She jumped a little at the sound before fishing out her phone. As she answered it she tried to ignore the amused tilt to Damon’s lips.

“Hello?”

“ _Yo! How’s the burbs?_ ”

Alana blinked at the voice, a warm smile coming to light up her face.

“Hey there stranger! Checking in on me?”

_“Well it has been a while since I’ve heard your lovely voice. I’ve been feeling a little lonely without you around. I guess your fams didn’t make a fuss like you assumed.”_

“Yeah, yeah, you were right. Just like always. Yada, yada, yada,” Alana responded with a roll of her eyes.

_“As always. So who’s the guy?”_

Alana started to say “No one,” until it occurred to her that the only way Andrew could know she was with a guy was if he was watching her.

“What guy,” she asked instead, cradling the phone to her ear with both hands.

“ _Uh – tall, dark, and cocky_.” Alana’s eyes were already scanning the area, her eyes narrowed. Finally she spotted him leaning casually against a tree, grinning at her like a loon.

Alana supposed the next few minutes played out a lot like a cliché movie scene.

“Blade,” she yelled out as she ran at him with her arms stretched out. He pushed away from the tree in time to catch her and somehow she ended up off her feet and spinning around.

If this was happening to anyone else and Alana was watching, she would have puked from the sweetness of it all. But since it was happening to her, she was too damn happy to care.

“Geez you creep,” Alana laughed as Andrew dropped her back to her feet, although he kept his arms wrapped around her waist. “Why didn’t you tell me you were stopping in?”

“I wanted to surprise you.”

“Well you did.”

“Does that mean I get a prize?” Alana laughed again before rising up on her toes and planting a wet smacking kiss on his lips.

“Ah! You always give the best prizes.”

Whatever Alana was about to say in return was cut off at the sound of someone clearing their throat. Alana glanced over her shoulder to see Damon standing there, watching them with a speculative look. Alana arched a brow back at him, moving to the side so that she was standing next to Andrew now.

“Who’s this,” Damon asked when it looked like no one was going to say anything. Andrew snorted and gave Alana an amused look which she returned.

“This is my good friend Andrew,” Alana told Damon in an overly pompous voice.

“Friend,” Damon repeated with a little disbelief and he was staring hard at the arm Andrew still had wrapped around Alana’s waist.

“Yes. Friend,” Alana told him. “I understand it’s a bit of a foreign concept for you seeing as you don’t have any, but the rest of us are very much capable of creating friendships.” Alana’s dry sarcasm had Andrew struggling to keep a straight face.

“Well excuse me for misunderstanding,” Damon quipped with a glare. “You guys just seem super cozy for just friends.”

“Oh look at that,” Andrew said with great amusement. “I think he’s jealous. How cute. Can I have him?” Both of Damon’s dark brows shot up at the question and he looked unsure of himself for a moment. Alana burst into loud laughter at the look on his face, Andrew joining her. Damon glared at the both before walking off in an angry storm.

“That was classic,” Alana crooned when she finally managed to pull herself together. She turned to look at Andrew with fondness and moved in to hug him once more. “Boy have I miss your face.”

“Boy have I missed your ass,” Andrew said back and gave said ass a playful slap. Alana snorted and pushed away from him.

“Come on, I’ll show you around.”

“Oh, Tour Time,” Andrew shouted with pseudo-cheer. 

* * *

 

“And this is the hovel of all the misfit teens – the Wondrous Mystic Grill,” Alana announced in a faked announcer voice. Andrew indulged her with loud claps and cheering. “After you my good sir,” Alana then said with a sweep of her arm. Andrew laughed as he eased his way into the building. Alana looked around him, casually scanning the room. It was just as crowded now as it had been three hours ago but Klaus was now long gone.

“Well isn’t this very rustic,” Andrew commented warmly, gazing about him with all the awe of a city born person. He spotted the bar at the far end and made a beeline toward it.

“Oh shut up city boy.” Alana shook her head as she slid onto a bar stool. Andrew grinned down at her before calling the attention of the bar man. It looked as if the shifts had changed because Alana found herself suddenly looking into the baby blue eyes of Matt Donovan.

“Hey,” the blonde said cautiously, looking deeply at Alana’s face. She assumed he was trying to figure out which twin he was talking to without being obvious.

“Mathew,” Alana said with some amusement, shooting Andrew a look. Matt looked a little surprised before a sheepish smile came onto his boyish face.

“Elena mentioned you were back in town,” he said.

“Yeah, I’m here to stay this time. No more acts of rebellion,” Alana told him with an exaggerated woeful sigh.

“Hmm. I don’t know. I think you still have a few more in you,” Andrew inputted, drawing Matt’s attention.

“Oh! Blade, this is my sister’s ex, Matt. Matt this is my good friend Andrew.” The two guys exchanged hellos and polite handshakes.

“So, I didn’t know you worked here,” Alana said after a moment of kind awkward silence.

“Yeah, I started up after Vicki died.”

And cue more awkward silence.

Alana had never been so happy to hear her phone ring. She dug the device and clicked it on. “Hello?”

“ _Alana, thank GOD! Where are you?_ ”

“The Grill,” Alana answered her brows creasing in worry. “What’s going on? You sound –”

“ _I’ll tell you later. You need to come home now._ ”

“Why? What happened?” Even as she asked the questions Alana was getting up and gathering her things.

“ _Just get here_.” And then Elena hung up. Alana sighed and then turned to face the concerned looks of Andrew and Matt.

“So, there’s some kind of emergency at home and I’m needed over there.”

“Cool,” Andrew said and he smoothly slid off the stool. “I’ll come with you. I’ve been waiting to meet the great Gilbert family.”

“Um . . .” Alana hesitated, shooting Matt a panicked look that he mirrored. “I’m not sure if this is the right time for that.” Andrew froze, his brows creasing and a frown flitting across his dark face.

“Why not?”

“Well I’m not sure how El and Jer will feel about a stranger listening in on a family thing,” Alana lied smoothly.

“Oh.” Andrew sat back down but he was still frowning. “I guess I’ll just hang here until you get back.”

“Great. I’ll see you later.”

And then Alana was rushing home. She had to run since she hadn’t been home since before her early morning workout. So by the time she got home, she was sweaty and panting hard.

“I-I’m here. Where’s the fire,” Alana panted as she burst through the front door. Everyone in the living room turned to look at her with wide eyes. Alana looked over all of them before her eyes landed on Alaric who was  . . . sleeping on the couch?

“Why is he asleep?”

“He’s not asleep,” Elena told her with a sigh and she patted Alaric’s hand from where she was kneeling next to him. “He’s dead.”

“Excuse me, what,” Alana asked, walking further into the room.

“He got hit by a car,” Jeremy told her dully. Alana blinked at him blankly, her mind racing.

“I’m confused.”

“So am I,” Damon spoke up and he turned to face Jeremy, who was sitting on the floor with his back braced against the archway leading into the kitchen. “Jeremy, why aren’t you wearing vervain? Where’s your bracelet man?”

Jeremy looked down at his arm, his brows scrunched up in confusion, before saying, “I don’t know.”

Elena gave him a look and sighed. “It was Tyler,” she said. “It had to have been. That’s why he’s been hanging out with you. To get you off the vervain.”

“Whoa, wait! What the hell did I miss,” Alana cut in before anyone could say anything else.

Elena sighed again before explaining. “Klaus compelled Jeremy to kill himself. We were lucky Alaric shoved him out of the way. And that it was a hybrid driving the car.”

“Shit,” Alana finally said when she found her voice. “Jeez. I knew the guy was twisted, but seriously?”

“Klaus is trying to send us a message,” Damon told them. “He wants to find Stefan who stole all of his coffins full of his dead family members.”

“Say _that_ five times fast,” Alana muttered and received a glare from Damon. She grinned cheekily back at him.

“Coffins,” Elena asked skeptically, bringing the conversation back on track.

“Yep,” Damon said with a roll of his eyes. “So all we have to do is find four coffins and voila – no one else on your family’s Christmas list needs to die!”

“Wait, so that’s your big plan,” Jeremy demanded, jumping to his feet and walking over so that he was standing face to face with Damon. “To steal back four dead Originals so that this evil hybrid doesn’t kill me and everyone else we know?”

“You got a better idea,” Damon demanded back.

“Yeah! Let’s get the hell out of here! Pack our bags and go!”

Elena stood up and moved so that she was standing next to Damon. Alana also moved forward, bracing herself in case things got out of hand.

“Jeremy, calm down,” Elena said in a soothing tone.

“No, no! I’m not going to calm down, Elena! This happens every time, no matter what we do! I mean you get on my case about – school and – and work. Who cares?” Jeremy moved his gaze from Elena to Damon, fixing him with a serious look. “None of us are gonna make it out of this town alive.”

Silence descended over the room. Jeremy looked over all of them before turning and walking out.

“Well that was dramatic,” Alana muttered with a huff.

“You’re not being very helpful right now,” Elena snapped.

“Whoa!” Alana raised her arms in a peace-giving move. “No need to snap my head off. I don’t really like being collateral damage for left over frustration.” Elena sighed and shook her head.

“Sorry.”

“It’s cool,” Alana said with a shrug. She threw her arm around Elena’s shoulder, pulling her twin into a half hug.

“So, Klaus wants his family back,” Elena asked after a minute. Damon, who had been staring after Jeremy, turned around now with narrowed eyes.

“No,” he said with a shake of his head. “I know what you’re thinking and the answer is no.”

“But if we give him Rebekah—”

“Are you crazy,” Alana demanded, but Damon spoke over her.

“Yeah and Klaus un-daggers her, first thing she does is kill you or Twinsy here. Frying pan. Fire. Not an option.”

“And I like life, thank you very much,” Alana added, but Elena didn’t even look like she was listening to them.

“Klaus’s coffins,” she said softly, her thoughts far away. Finally her eyes focused on Damon as she asked, “How many did you say there were?”

“Four, why?”

“I have to make a call,” Elena said instead of answering. She snatched up her phone from off of the side table and then walked out the front door.

“Oh jeez,” Alana sighed, walking over to the kitchen and sitting down on a stool by the island. “Why does this have to happen now?”

“What? Not sure how to break the news to your boyfriend,” Damon asked sarcastically. Alana shot him a withering look.

“First of all, Blade is _not_ my boyfriend,” Alana said with a roll of his eyes. “And second, no, I don’t know how I’m going to tell him about any of this. And I’ve _never_ kept secrets from him.”

“Wait, you’re not serious, are you?” Alana turned to face him.

“I’m dead serious.”

“I don’t know what it is about you Gilberts,” Damon muttered to himself before moving forward so that he was hovering over Alana. He stared deeply into her eyes as he said, “You can’t tell him about any of this. Understand?”

Alana wrinkled her nose, leaning back to put some space between them.

“I’m wearing vervain, sir.”

“Where,” Damon asked, pulling away and staring at her suspiciously.

“I’m not going to tell you.” Damon opened his mouth to say something more, but was cut off when Elena walked back into the house, already talking.

“Bonnie, says she knows where Stefan is. We need to head over to the abandoned house.”

“Alright, let’s go,” Damon said and he started walking toward the front door.

“Um, I can’t.” Elena and Damon both turned to look at her with surprise.

“What do you mean you _can’t_ ,” Damon demanded, appearing suddenly right in front of Alana again.

“I can’t just leave Blade hanging.”

“Who’s Blade,” Elena asked.

“This is important,” Damon spoke over her.

“Well Blade likes to play Nancy Drew. So if you really don’t want him to find out, I have to go,” Alana said in a tone that suggested she was talking to a small child. “Now if you’ll excuse me.” She pushed past Damon and strolled straight out the door. 

* * *

 

“So, what was that all about,” was the first thing that left Andrew’s mouth when Alana slid into the seat next to him. He had moved to a table by the pool area and was watching a group of teens horsing around.

“Our guardian had a little accident but he should be fine,” Alana told him as truthful as possible.

“Oh, so what now?”

“Now,” Alana said, grinning sharply. “We go for a walk that will hopefully end at my house.” And she felt a little bit better about the excited look Andrew got on his face.

By the time they got to the house, night had fallen over Mystic Falls. Alana was laughing when they came up to the house. She would have completely missed the decapitated body if she hadn’t tripped over it.

“Whoa.” Andrew caught her around the waist and pulled her back before she could fall into the blood. “What the hell happened here?”

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,” Alana muttered, staring at the body with wide eyes. “Wholly SHIT. There’s a body on my porch. There’s a decapitated body on my porch. _Why_ is there a decapitated body on my porch?”

“Hey, look at me. Alana!” Andrew grabbed Alana’s shoulders, pulling her around until she looked into his face. “Breathe,” he instructed.

Alana took in a deep breath holding it until Andrew instructed her to let it out.

“Good. Now we should probably call the cops and —”

“No,” Alana shouted, startling Andrew. “No cops. I’ll – I know someone to call.” Andrew arched a brow but said nothing as Alana fished her phone out of her pocket.

She called Elena first, but got directed to voicemail. So next she called Alaric and again got pushed to voicemail. Alana was about to call Damon when it occurred to her that she had never gotten his number.

“No answer,” Andrew asked softly. Alana sighed and shook her head.

“They must be busy,” she said in their defense. She sighed again before turning to stare at the body. If she didn’t think too hard about it, the situation was almost unreal. She could be staring at a gag. But no, the body was actually starting to stink and some of the blood was drying brown.

“Help me please.”

“Yeah, okay,” he agreed easily. And Alana thought it was a stroke of luck that Andrew didn’t question her reasoning for not calling the cops. Or maybe he was just reacting in a way normal for someone who grew up in the ghetto.

Andrew moved the body to the back of the house at Alana’s order and then the two got down on their knees and began work on the porch. They were still scrubbing when Elena pulled into the driveway twenty minutes later.

“Alana! I was hoping to —” Elena broke off midsentence when she caught sight of Andrew. The two friends paused and stared at her. It was silent for a moment before Andrew broke it.

“Damn gurl! She’s like a carbon copy. Are you sure you guys ain’t clones or something?”

And Alana couldn’t help it. She burst out into laughter, clutching at her stomach as tears got caught in the corner of her eyes.

“Classic,” she wheezed after a long moment.

“Um, who’s this,” Elena asked hesitantly.

“This, twin, is my bud Andrew,” Alana introduced, throwing her arm around Andrew’s broad shoulders.

“Oh,” Elena intoned her eyes narrowing. “I’ve never seen you around before.”

“That’s because I’m from the NY hon,” Andrew told her in an amused tone. Elena nodded looking a little bit uncomfortable. Another silence fell where Elena looked everywhere but at the blood stain on the porch.

“Well, I guess I should head back to the motel,” Andrew muttered when he caught onto Elena’s peculiar mood. “I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”

“Yeah.”

And then Andrew was looping down the walkway and turning down the street. Alana watched him go until he disappeared into the darkness, and then turned to face her little sister.

“So, decapitated body on the porch,” Alana said in a conversational tone. Elena winced and looked off to the side.

“Yeah, you’ve missed a lot.”

“Well then fill me in while we clean.” Elena sighed before dropping to her knees and taking up Andrew’s sponge. She told Alana everything that had happened since Alaric had woken up although there were some holes in her story. Like where she was and what she was doing when Alana had called her. And Alana could tell that there was something bothering her sister. It was all in Elena’s tense shoulder, heavy voice, and tired eyes.

The twins moved into the house to wring out the sponges in the sink when Damon arrived.

“There’s a body in the backyard,” Alana told him dully before he could say anything. “Mind getting rid of it.” Damon looked a little reluctant but he did it anyways.

“Tony the headless hybrid is down at the bottom of Steven’s quarry,” he announced when he came back.

“What about Alaric,” Elena asked, staring into the sink and watching the blood run out of the sponges.

“Took care of him too,” he reported, shooting Alana a look. “He’ll be fine.” Alana shrugged, staring at her sister’s back worriedly.

“How are you,” Damon then asked after a couple of seconds of silence.

“I think we got most of the blood off the porch,” Elena told him with a sigh.

“That’s not what he meant,” Alana told her.

“Elena.” No response. “Look at me Elena.” Finally Elena turned around, fixing her eyes on Damon and giving him a ‘what’ stare.

“It’s going to be okay.”

“I don’t think any of us have the right to say that,” Alana intercepted. “Not in this situation. I mean, sure we’ll survive, but I don’t think it will be _alright_.”

“Alright Negative Nancy,” Damon snapped and the two fell into a glaring contest.

“I have to tell you guys something,” Elena spoke up, cutting the contest short. They both turned to look at her. “I, uh, made a deal with Klaus,” she said pushing at her hair. “I gave him Rebekah.”

“What? No. No, no, no you did not do that,” Damon said. “She’s going to come here and try and kill you and Nancy.”

“My name’s Alana. You might as well use it,” Alana told him tersely, but she could have been a chair for all the attention she got.

“No she won’t,” Elena said. “Klaus won’t let her because he needs me.”

“What and suddenly you trust him?”

“No I don’t trust him. But what other choice do I have?” It was silent after Elena voiced this question. She backed away from Damon and shook her head. “I don’t trust Stefan. Do you think he’s just gonna . . . give up the coffins?”

Whatever defense Damon was about to give Elena fell right through at the mention of Stefan. Damon’s eyes fell to the ground and Alana knew immediately that he was hiding something.

“My brother’s . . . sort of running his own show now.”

“Yeah. My brother just chopped off somebody’s head,” Elena rebuffed.

“ _Our_ brother,” Alana inserted. “And it was in protection.”

“It’s still not right,” Elena exclaimed, throwing her arms up as she whirled on Alana. “It’s not _fair_! He’s only sixteen-year-old. He shouldn’t have to live like this.” She took a deep breath and then turned back to the sink, this time to wash the blood off her hands. Alana stared down at her own bloodied hands, wondering if this was how life was always going to be.

“Elena,” Damon called.

“There has to be another way,” Elena told him, sniffling now. “We have to fix it.”

“We will,” Damon told her.

“And how do we do that,” Alana demanded. Elena turned around, linking eyes with Damon. Something significant passed between them that Alana completely missed. “I’m not going to like this . . . am I?” 

* * *

 

Alana walked out the front door and began pacing. She was trying really hard to not think about what Damon was doing upstairs. It wasn’t right. It really wasn’t right. But Elena said it was for Jeremy’s sake.

The door opened behind her and Alana just knew it was Damon.

“I feel like a horrible person.”

“You just saved his life,” Damon told her. “Take it from me, estranged is bad, dead is worse.”

Alana rolled her eyes.

“I just keep thinking about what happened the last time he was compelled,” Alana admitted, remembering what Elena had told her. She hadn’t even been here as she could imagine how hurt Jeremy had probably felt when he had found out.

“He found out. And he got over it. Again: not dead.”

Alana heaved a heavy sigh. Damon’s candid attitude was really not helping her guilt right now. She turned to pace the other way and almost ran into Damon.

“He’s so lucky to have a sister like you,” he told her.

Alana searched his face and saw that Damon was actually being sincere. “Thank you.”

“No problem,” he told her with his usual smirk.

“Not for just this,” Alana reaffirmed. “Everything. I don’t know what our family would be like if you weren’t here.” And she meant it. She could only imagine the kind of wreckage she would have come upon if Damon hadn’t been there to support Elena.

“There’s something you should know,” Damon suddenly said, his voice uncharacteristically low. “Stefan didn’t screw us over.”

Alana’s brows furrowed as she tried to think of why Damon was telling her this and not Elena.

“He screwed us over,” Damon reiterated, “but he had a good reason. He saved Klaus to save me. Then he stole the coffins to get even.”

“Okay. Why are you telling me this,” Alana asked slowly.

“Why am I telling you this,” Damon repeated. “I’m telling you this ‘cause I’m an idiot. ‘Cause I thought for one second that I wouldn’t have to feel guilty anymore.”

“Wait. What are you talking about,” Alana demanded, tired of Damon talking in circles. “Feel guilty for what?”

Damon turned to look at her, his eyes boring deep into hers.

“For wanting what I want.”

And it suddenly hit her. Damon thought she was Elena. Well that was just rude.

“Damon—”

“I know. Believe me, I get it. Brother’s girl and all.” And he looked like a kicked puppy.

Alana felt a little bad for him, but not enough to forgive him for mistaking her for Elena. Damon grimaced and then started walking down the porch.

Alana rolled her eyes and turned to go inside.

“No,” Damon suddenly said and Alana looked over her shoulder at him curiously. “No, you know what? If I’m gonna feel guilty about something, I’m gonna feel guilty about this.”

Even as Damon stalked toward her, Alana didn’t see the kiss coming. But suddenly his hands were cupping her face and his lips were on hers and her mind blanked. She didn’t even think about the fact that this was Damon Salvatore the vampire in love with her sister. Or that Damon currently thought she was Elena. She didn’t even think about what Elena might feel about all of this.

She kissed him back.

She wasn’t sure how long the kiss lasted. Maybe a second, maybe a couple of minutes. But she was still in a daze when it ended. Damon stared down at her, his lip turning upward into a half smile and his eyes burning into hers.

“Goodnight,” he whispered and then walked off. Alana stared after him, her mouth dropped open. And that was how Elena found her a few minutes later.

“What are you doing,” she asked, looking around to see what could have possible caught Alana’s attention.

“Damon just . . . he . . .” Alana trailed off as she turned to look at her sister, suddenly remembering who it was she was talking to. There was no way she could tell Elena that Damon had just kissed her. Or that he had kissed her thinking she was Elena. Elena felt guilty enough stringing the vampire along, she didn’t need to know that Alana’s prediction had come true.

“What? What did Damon do,” Elena demanded, looking overly concerned. Alana shook head and searched her mind of something that could pass for a lie.

“Ah, Damon just told me something very . . . confusing,” she finally said, clutching onto something she knew would take Elena’s mind down a track that didn’t involve Damon or stolen kisses.

“ _What?_ Just tell me Alana. Was it bad?”

“No, it’s just . . . well apparently Stefan ruined the plan to save Damon’s life.”

Elena’s brows knitted together in confusion. “What do you mean? Stefan did it to . . . but why? If he had his humanity turned off why would he . . . what does this _mean_?”

Alana lifted and dropped her shoulders in a shrug.

“I don’t know,” she said. “Hence the shock and confusion.”

Elena shook her head and Alana could practically hear her mind whirling. She let out a low sigh, taking Elena’s arm as she directed her sister into the house.

“Come on, you can brood over this inside.”


	10. Our Town

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finally things are getting normal again. Or normal-ish.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So . . . if you don't know yet, I'll tell you now. I'm working on a novel and therefore, all of my fanfics have kind of ended up on the backburner. But I will not abandon my story! I'll just be even worse about my updates, not that I've been all to great about those either. Have I mentioned that I've been working on this novel for the last two year?

_Can we ever get rid of the whats and the ifs_  
That doubts that exist in our minds  
In the silence I am tricked into thinking you’ll forget  
And I’ll be stranded like a man in a mine

_Courrier - Between_

_October 16, 2010 – Mystic Falls: Mystic Motel_

Andrew hit the floor hard, all the air whooshing out of his lungs. He sucked it back in, letting out a low groan at the pain tripping up his back. His eyes wheeled around until they locked onto Alana who was standing over him, breathing heavily.

“You’ve gotten a helluva a lot stronger,” he commented dryly.

Alana held out her hand, waiting until she felt his calloused palm slid against hers before pulling him up. Andrew let out another groan as he got to his feet, wincing at the pain that seemed to now center in his shoulder.

“Just channeling some frustration,” Alana told him in a forced casual tone. Andrew rotated his shoulder as he peered curiously down into her face. His brown eyes trailed slowly over her face as if he were trying to find something in her expression. Alana knew he could see through her act and she kept her expression carefully blank. “What?”

“What happened,” he asked her, concern coating his voice.

Looks like Alana’s attempt at hiding her feeling didn’t work.

Alana let out a sigh before turning and plopping down into the nearest chair. She sank into the old couch, the worn cushions rising upward as if it were trying to eat her whole.

“Damon kissed me last night,” she finally confessed as she pushed at the cushions. As she said the words it felt like a tiny weight had lifted from her chest.

Andrew arched a brow, moving so that he was sitting in the chair in front of her. It looked newer and the cushions didn’t look like they were trying to swallow him. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and clasping his hands together.

“But you like him, so what’s the problem,” he questioned.

Alana blinked in surprise before heat rose to her cheeks. “I don’t _like_ Damon,” she protested, a little loudly too. She struggled to control herself, before saying in a level tone, “I just like looking at him.”

“Okay,” Andrew drawled but he didn’t sound the least bit convinced. “I can respect that. He is very nice to look at.”

Very nice was an understatement, but saying it out loud would have given Alana away.

“Besides, the fact that he kissed me isn’t the problem. It’s the fact that when he kissed me he thought I was Elena.” Andrew winced at that. “Exactly.”

“So, have you told Elena? She doesn’t like him back -- does she?”

“Not in the slightest,” Alana said. “She’s in love with his younger brother.”

“Oh boy.” Andrew sat back in his chair with a low whistle. “This town in like a freaking soap opera. All the drama.” Andrew shook his head slowly before looking over at Alana with a smile and winking. “I like it.”

“Lucky you,” Alana deadpanned. She pushed hard against the sucking cushions, jumping up to her feet and stretching out her arms over her head. “Anyways. I have to get to school.”

“Isn’t this a little early,” Andrew asked with a quick glance at the clock.

“Today is a friend’s birthday, so we’re planning to decorate her locker,” Alana explained as she moved about the room to gather her stuff. “I’ll see you afterward, okay?”

“Sure, sure,” Andrew called, tilting sideways so that he was sprawled put in the chair, his legs coming to hang over the arm. He waved at her lazily as he called, “Have fun in school.”

“Like that’s possible.”

Alana shut the door firmly behind her before running down the apartment stairs and outside to her motorcycle. She threw her leg over it smoothly, started the bike, and then sped off. She was running a little late for her meeting with Bonnie and Elena, but she wasn’t too worried about it.

“Alana,” a voice called out as she was heading into the school building. She turned without thinking about it and felt a frown come onto her face when she caught sight of Tyler.

He waved at her but she turned around and began walking towards the school a little faster.

“Alana, wait!”

“Stupid long legs,” Alana muttered under her breath when she felt a heavy hand land on her shoulder. She sighed softly before turning fully to look up at Tyler. “What do you want,” she demanded as she crossed her arms over her chest.

Hurt flashed across Tyler’s face and it made Alana feel the tiniest bit guilty. But she stood strong.

“I’m sorry,” Tyler said lowly.

“Save it,” Alana bit out. At the kicked puppy look that graced her best friends face, she sighed again and dropped her arms. “Look, I know you didn’t mean to but you almost got my little bro killed. I love you Ty, but I just need time to process. Okay?”

“Okay,” Tyler agreed, although the hurt didn’t lift from his eyes. He looked incredibly young to Alana, like she was looking at the eight-year-old who had run out of the house after being yelled at by his father.

“Oh Ty, I am sorry. Just give me some time,” she told him softly. “I don’t want to blame you, but this sire bond goes way deeper than you had first assumed. I just . . .”

“I understand,” Tyler said after a moment when Alana trailed off. He sucked in a deep breath before offering her a shaky smile. “I just don’t want to lose you too.”

Alana rested her hand on his arm and squeezed.

“You aren’t going to.”

With another deep breath, Tyler nodded and then walking off. His shoulder were hunched in a way it only did when he was sad and it made him look small. Alana stared after him sadly before shaking the feeling off.

She really did love Tyler, he was like another brother to her. But she didn’t know if she could trust him so fully anymore. Taking a deep breath, she pasted on a half-smile and then headed off to Caroline’s locker.

Elena and Bonnie were already there, the poster the three of them had made taped to the front of Caroline’s locker. She hurried over to them but as she did, Bonnie walked away, further down the hallway.

“Where’s she going,” Alana called by way of greeting. Elena turned to look at her, her smile a little guilty.

“I just told Bonnie about Jer,” she informed her twin.

“Oh,” Alana intoned and stared down the hallway after the black witch. “I’m guessing she didn’t take that well, huh?”

“Not really,” Elena said with a sigh.

“Are you sure we’re doing the right thing,” Alana asked lowly, moving closer so that they wouldn’t be heard. “Is this really what’s best for Jer?”

“What else can we do,” Elena questioned back.

And for that Alana really didn’t have an answer.

* * *

 

“Isn’t this gate crashing,” Andrew asked as he followed Alana over to where Matt, Elena, and Bonnie were standing. Out of the three of them Bonnie was the only one that hadn’t met Andrew and she was gazing at him with some suspicion.

“It’ll be fine,” Alana told her, rubbing at his arm from where hers was looped through his. And before he could argue any more she pulled up in front of the trio.

“Bonnie,” she began. “This is my good friend Andrew. Andrew, Bonnie.”

“Nice to meet you,” Bonnie said stiffly with a half-smile.

“Pleasure,” Andrew murmured with a toothy grin. He gave Matt a head nod all guys seemed to do whether they were straight or not and then said to Elena, “Nice seeing you under better circumstances.”

Elena offered him a tense smile, her eyes questioning Alana.

Alana rolled her eyes hoping that would make her sister relax. Elena didn’t seem to get it because she said to Andrew, “Yeah, sorry about that. We don’t usually have decapitated bodies on our front porch.”

“It’s cool,” Andrew said with a shrug. “It’s not the first body I’ve seen.”

“Andrew’s a psychology major with an emphasis in forensic,” Alana rushed to explain at the startled look everyone was giving him.

“And I grew up in the worst part of the ghetto,” Andrew added lazily. “Promise, I’m not a psycho killer.”

“Anyways, are we doing this or what,” Alana asked before it could get too awkward. She reached forward and grabbed a party hat, handing it to Andrew before putting one on herself. The five then entered Caroline’s house, hiding in the living room.

It didn’t take long for Caroline to come home and they all jumped out with a shout of surprise.

Caroline jumped, looking suitably startled.

“What are you guys doing here,” she asked with a smile that looked a little shaky around the edges and eyes that seemed a tiny bit sad.

“Well you blew off school and miss our work of birthday art,” Elena explained with a grin. She took the ‘birthday crown’ as they had dubbed it, off her head and placed it on Caroline’s head. “So . . .

Caroline took the fuzzy purple crown with a grin, looking suitably happier.

“Change into warmer clothes. We’re going to the Falls,” Bonnie told her with a shrug. “S’mores.”

“Campfire,” Alana added.

“Cake,” Elena chimed. “Just like when we were little.”

“Except for the tequila,” Matt finished, lifting the bottle in the air.

Caroline let out a chuckle that sounded just a little deflated to Alana’s ears. And then her smile dropped a little and Alana frowned.

“Thanks, guys, really,” Caroline told them, trying to keep up a cheerful tone. “Um, I’m just not, uh, really feeling my birthday this year.”

Everyone was frowning now, Bonnie looked very much skeptical.

“I’m sorry, what,” she asked with a laugh. “You’ve already claimed your birthday as everyone’s favorite day of the year.”

“Yeah, and now, it’s just a reminder that technically I’m dead,” Caroline told them matter-of-factly and Alana was suddenly reminded that Andrew was standing _right behind her_. But everyone else seemed to have forgotten his presence in light of Caroline’s sour mood.

Alana shot her friend a glance but he was just leaning casually against the wall, his expression confused as he fiddled with his hat, but he didn’t look like he was going to suddenly start demanding explanations – although his lips were pursed in a manner that suggested he was thinking hard about something.

“Look,” Caroline was continuing to say. “I didn’t even like seventeen. And the only point to being seventeen is to get to eighteen. It’s a filler year; I’m stuck in a filler year.” She said all this really fast with a deep sigh in the middle that showed just how much this was bothering her.

“You’re not stuck, Caroline,” Elena protested, like the good friend she was.

“Yeah, I am,” Caroline interrupted before Elena could say any more. Her eyes drifted to the side for a moment before she sighed again and said, “But, it’s okay. You know, it’s all good. I’ll be fine. But I just need some time to wallow in it.”

Elena looked at Caroline sadly, for once not seeming to know what to say.

“Okay then,” Alana spoke up to kill the somber mood that had fallen. “Then I have a better idea,” she told them all.

“Oo, I so do love your ideas hon,” Andrew suddenly said, moving over and draping his arms over her shoulders to wrap her in a hug from behind. He dropped his chin on top of Alana’s head and grinned lazily at the group.

Caroline drew in a sharp breath, her eyes wide as they took in Andrew. The others suddenly looked scared, and Alana could understand. They had said way too much in front of a person who wasn’t in on the secret and they weren’t sure how Andrew would take it.

Alana gave them a reassuring grin before tilting her head to the side so that she could look meaningfully at Andrew. He rolled his eyes but got the point, sliding his arms off her shoulder before going to wait outside.

“Oh my gosh, I didn’t know he was there! Who was that,” Caroline questioned as soon as the door had closed behind him, her eyes trained on the glass at the image of Andrew standing awkwardly on the stoop.

“That was my friend Andrew,” Alana told her. “And you better be lucky he’s not one to ask too questions.”

“Wait, he’s not going to ask a single thing about what he just heard,” Bonnie asked skeptically.

“Nope,” Alana said, popping the ‘p’. “He trusts me and he’ll wait for me to tell him myself instead of questioning me.” Incredulous looks were shared between the group and Alana rolled her eyes. “Really guys.”

“If you say so,” Elena was the one to say. “I trust you.” She looked over the group waiting until everyone had relaxed a few notched. “Now, what’s this idea of yours?”

Alana grinned sharply before winking at Caroline.

“You’ll just have to wait and see.”

* * *

Night had fallen quickly over Mystic Falls, the sun disappearing as the group picked their way through the forest. Everyone had relaxed immensely when a couple of hours had passed and Andrew hadn’t uttered a single question about Caroline’s ‘being dead’ comment.

And like Alana had predicted, Andrew was getting along perfectly with them all.

Alana was grinning widely as the beams of their flashlight fell onto the structure of an old catacomb, the stone worn and cracked in some places.

“There it is,” she called out with cheer, walking forward and pushing the doors open with a flourish. They creaked and groaned but gave way under her palm, displacing dust and a couple of spider webs. Alana did a little jig as she tried to dislodge the webs, brushing at them frantically before finally leading the way into the crypt.

“Okay, this is creepy, even for us,” Bonnie commented as she entered behind Alana.

“No, Caroline was right,” Alana told them, shooting Andrew a look that told him not to question anything. Andrew narrowed his eyes at her – his patience was sure to be running thin by now – but he shrugged, turning to look around like he was an aspiring architect. Alana glared at his back until finally he rolled his eyes at her.

“I’ll be right back,” he told them and exited before he could hear anything else incriminating. Alana really was lucky to have him as a friend, and she knew that very soon she would have to tell him everything.

Boy was she dreading that day.

“Anyways,” she breathed. “Technically, Caroline is dead. Sorry.” Caroline shrugged at her words to say it didn’t bother her that much, but Alana could tell that it did. She walked forward and rubbed at Caroline’s arm.

“But you don’t need a birthday. You need a funeral,” Alana finished with a tiny smile. “You need to say goodbye to your old life, so you can move on with your new one.”

Caroline’s lips twitched into a smile and she let out a low chuckle before nodding her head in agreement. She then reached up and pulled off the fuzzy birthday tiara.

“Okay,” she said decisively, placing the tiara on one of the stone columns. “Here lies Caroline Forbes—”

“Cheerleader,” Elena started when the blonde had trailed off. She started putting candles into Caroline’s birthday cake as she added, “Miss Mystic Falls . . .”

“You won that,” Alana interrupted with a wide grin. “Awesome,” and she held up her hands for a high five which Caroline participated in.

“Third-grade hopscotch champion,” Alana then said to add to the list of Caroline’s achievements. Caroline gave a girlish giggle at that, her grin wide.

“Friend,” Bonnie added, walking forward to take Caroline’s hands. “Daughter, _overachiever_ . . .”

Caroline smiles at the last one but it turned into an indigent frown as she glared at Matt when he said, “Mean girl.” Matt shrugged sheepishly before adding, “Sometimes, no offense.”

“Uh huh,” Caroline intoned before she shrugged and said, “None taken.”

“She was seventeen,” Elena spoke up again.

“And she had a really good life,” Alana finished. Elena smiled warmly over at her before lifting up the cake and walking over so that they were standing in a loose circle.

“So rest in peace, so that she can move forward,” the two intoned in a rare moment of twin-speak. It was this action over everything else that had everyone around them grinning so wide their cheeks were sure to hurt.

“I remember you guys used to do that all the time,” Caroline said softly as they smiled identically at her.

“It’s what you really need,” Elena told her.

“It’s what you all really need,” Alana corrected, her eyes trailed over all of them. “And maybe me too, just a little bit.” She winked drawing chuckles all around.

“Amen. Or cheers or whatever,” Elena finished before holding the cake out and asking, “Ah, Bonnie,” and motioning to the candles.

Bonnie’s mouth formed an ‘o’ before she closed her eyes. The candles suddenly lit up as a flame grew from nothing and Alana was suddenly _very_ glad Andrew had decided to leave for the moment. There was only so much he could be witness to before he _had_ to ask questions.

“Cool,” she whispered. “Our own personal lighter.”

Bonnie gave her a mock glare, knocking their shoulders together.

“Okay, make a wish,” Elena told the blonde.

Caroline closed her eyes slowly and there was a long moment in which Alana wondered what the hell it was she was wishing for, before the vampire finally blew out the candles.

As she did so Andrew walked back in, holding up a huge handle of vodka.

“I’ve got liquor,” he called which was met with much cheer.

* * *

The party was reaching the wee hours of the morning now, everyone pretty much in some stage of intoxication. Andrew, the drunk and lightweight that he was, was passed out in the corner, clutching his empty bottle of vodka as if it were a teddy bear.

Matt suddenly lurched forward, reaching for the dwindling bottle of tequila Alana had pretty much commandeered for herself.

“Ah, ah,” she told him, easily taking the bottle back. “I need this more than you. Trust me.”

Matt gave her a questioningly look that she pretty much ignored. He didn’t need to know about her Damon issues and she certainly wasn’t going to say them when Elena was around.

“Caroline, what are you doing,” Elena called, drawing attention to the blonde who was huddle in the back of the crypt, looking intently at her phone.

“Hmm? Hmm?” Caroline’s head shot up and she looked at them with innocent wide eyes. “Nothing. Huh? Hmm?”

Alana snickered into her bottle at Caroline’s poor attempt to lie.

“Okay,” Elena said after a minute. “You’re a bad sober liar and an even worse drunk liar.” She arched her brow questioningly and after a moment, Caroline gave in.

“I might have texted Tyler,” Caroline admitted with a guilty expression.

“Caroline,” Elena scolded.

And Alana, in all her drunken glory tried not to look guilty herself.

No one needed to know that she had texted Tyler also, not that anyone even really remembered that he was her best friend.

“What! I’m delicate,” Caroline whined with a pout, giving Elena her best puppy dog eyes.

“Give her a break,” Bonnie said in Caroline’s defense. “You can’t control what everyone does all the time.”

The room literally froze.

Matt looked at Bonnie with surprise and Alana’s jaw dropped open with a pop.

“Wow,” Elena said after a moment.

“Ouch, Bon,” Matt muttered lowly and exited the crypt quickly to avoid the coming argument. He was such a guy.

“Sorry,” Bonnie apologized although she didn’t really sound too sorry. “I know its Caroline’s birthday, funeral or whatever, but I just feel it’s really wrong that you compelled Jeremy to leave town.”

Alana swallowed thickly, looking between the witch and her twin as if she was watching a tennis match.

“I’m doing it to protect him, Bonnie,” Elena said seriously, her expression showing a little bit of hurt. “I want to give him a chance to have a quiet normal life.”

Bonnie leaned forward on the stone bench, her expression just as serious. “He should be able to choose how he wants to live it. You’re taking his choices away.”

“Bonnie you can’t tell him,” Elena pleaded.

“Why,” Bonnie demanded her tone turning challenging and her voice just a touch sarcastic. “Are you going to compel me not to?”

“You know,” Matt suddenly exploded – Alana hadn’t even heard him enter the tomb again, “You guys are ruining a perfectly good funeral.”

Bonnie’s eyes drifted up to his before she let out a deep sigh. She looked between Matt and Caroline, as she said, “I’m sorry. I’m just gonna go sleep it off or something.” She snatched up her purse, sliding it onto her shoulder as she turned to Caroline. “Happy birthday,” she said and then she walked out.

Alana watched her go, her mind now turned to Jeremy and she revisited her question from earlier that day. Were they really doing what was best for him? Was sending him away the right choice?

As she looked down at the bottle of tequila she couldn’t help but brood over Bonnie’s words.

* * *

Alana was very much drunk when the door to the crypt opened up again. She turned her gaze towards it and it took a moment for her eyes to focus in on the familiar face of her best friend. The lighthearted chuckles that had been filling the crypt suddenly cut off as everyone else caught sight of Tyler also.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to crash the party,” Tyler said into the awkward silence.

“So don’t,” Matt said back, a little hostile.

“No,” Caroline said, jumping up from the bench. “It’s – it’s okay.”

“Ty,” Alana squealed when it finally registered in her sluggish mined that he was there. Tyler blinked, his eyes dropping down to her sprawled out figure. “You came! I knew you would. You always come.”

Tyler rolled his eyes at her drunken behavior before reaching forward and pulling her to her feet. Alana wobbled unsteadily for a moment before bracing her arms on his shoulder.

“Whoa! The room’s spinning.”

“That’s what happens when you mix colors,” Tyler told her fondly.

“But vodka and tequila belong together,” Alana slurred, leaning into Tyler’s side. “Mm,” she hummed. “You’re really warm. Like a heater.”

“What’s going on here,” Caroline suddenly demanded, looking between the two of them with suspicious jealousy. Alana grinned stupidly over at her before swatting at Tyler’s broad chest.

“I texted Tyler, and he came,” she admitted stupidly. “Just like always.” She then tilted her head to look at him, smiling dopily before giving him a wet kiss on the cheek. “You’re the best.”

Caroline looked likely to spit fire at the display, and Elena and Matt were watching with wide eyes and opened mouths.

“It’s not like that Caroline,” Tyler quickly tried to explain, although he didn’t push Alana away like one would assume. “We’re not together.”

“Eww,” Alana intoned, her nose wrinkling in distaste. “As if,” she said, swaying away from him and almost crashing to the floor. Tyler's hand shot out to hold her steady but Alana hardly noticed. She was still cringing at the thought of her and Tyler being together.

“That’s a super gross thought. It'd be like – like dating my brother. Dating Jer. Yuck.”

“We’re just friends,” Tyler explained with a roll of his eyes. “Lana only acts like this when she’s really drunk.”

“Not drunk,” Alana muttered, jerking out of Tyler’s hold and crashing into the stone bench. She righted herself, flipping her long hair out of her face before leaning into Elena’s side. “Ty doesn’t know what the fuck he’s talking about.”

Tyler sighed and rolled his eyes at Alana’s behavior, but pretty much chose to ignore it. He turned to look over at Caroline, his dark eyes boring into her as he asked, “Can I talk to you for a sec? It’s kind of important.”

Caroline looked a little hesitant, but, after a moment, she nodded and then followed Tyler out of the crypt. Alana watched them walk away through half-lidded eyes before she held the tequila bottle out to Matt – who was looking a little hang-dog.

“You okay,” Elena asked softly.

“Yeah,” Matt exhaled, handing the bottle back to Alana after taking a swig. “I just want her to be happy, you know.” There was a small pause before he added, “It’s what I want for all of you guys, in the middle of this crazy life you got stuck with is.”

“Is that how you see it,” Elena asked carefully, looking at him with a speculative expression. “That we’re stuck?”

“I’d say it’s attached itself on to you all pretty tight, yeah.”

“Like a leech,” Alana added with a snort. “A big, slimy leech!”

“You really are drunk,” Matt said with great amusement, and she tilted her head back and stuck her tongue out at him.

“I would have said that if I was sober.”

“You know,” Elena cut in, her voice so serious, Alana frowned at her twin even in her drunken haze. “I think Bonnie’s right. I have no business messing in Jeremy’s head. I just – I don’t know what else to do. He’s in danger here.” Elena shook her head, taking the bottle Alana was pushing into her hands. “I can’t lose anyone else.”

“And you won’t,” Alana told her, sobering up a little bit as she gave her sister a half hug. “I’ll be here always and so will Jer -- even if he is going somewhere else for a while.” She released Elena only to pull her around so that they were staring face to face.

“We will survive this.”

A sad little smile shifted onto Elena’s lips and she rubbed at her sister’s arm.

“Guy’s,” Matt called, breaking the sister moment. They turned to look at him and he lifted the empty tequila bottle and shook it. “We’re out.”

Alana let out a low groan, dropping her head into her hands.

“Looks like the party’s over,” Elena said with a smile. She then looked around the quiet crypt and added, “Especially since the birthday girl seems to have deserted us.”

“Of course,” Alana grumbled, rolling her eyes. She got unsteadily to her feet, shuffling over to the corner where her friend was sprawled. “Blade! Party’s over. Time to go home,” she yelled, shaking his shoulder.

“We’ll go look for Caroline,” Matt volunteered, picking up a flashlight and heading out of the crypt. Elena snatched up the bottle, wiggled her fingers at Alana, and then followed the blonde out. Alana could hear them laughing outside in between calls for Caroline.

Alana smiled to herself before turning her attention back to Andrew. She shook his shoulder hard, nearly knocking his head against the stone wall of the tomb. After a moment the man jerked into awareness, blinking his eyes rapidly.

“Wha,” he asked, looking around in confusion. He brushed off Alana’s hand, getting shakily to his feet.

Alana got up slowly also, wanting to help him as he swayed but she wasn’t too steady either.

“Oh god, the room’s spinning,” Andrew groaned, lifting a large hand to his head.

“Isn’t it fun,” Alana giggled. She grabbed his hand and the two stumbled their way out of the crypt. It was silent outside, the woods creaking ominously around them. A quick scan around revealed no sign of Matt or Elena.

“They left us,” Alana pouted, her eyes scanning the trees again. Andrew muttered something, but it was so low, Alana couldn’t understand what it was he had said. “Come on.” She reached for his hand again, pulling him around the corner of the crypt, and that’s when she spotted Matt lying face down on the ground.

“Matt,” she called in alarm, dropping to her knees. “Matt? Mathew! Wake up! Where’s Elena? What happened?” The teen was suitably unconscious though and didn’t move a single muscle. Alana sighed and sat back on her knees. She tilted her head to frown up at Andrew.

“Now what?”

* * *

“That son of a bitch,” Alana growled lowly, glaring a hole into the glass of the window. She had Elena tucked securely into her side, much to her twin’s ire, and Damon kept sending them half-concealed concerned looks in the rearview mirror.

“When I find him, I’m going to stake him and then set him on fire and dance around him while he burns.”

“A little vindictive tonight, aren’t we,” Damon commented dryly.

Alana sent him a glare in the rearview mirror. “I have every right to be. No one tries to drive my sister off a bridge. I don’t care what their reasons are.”

Damon gave a shrug but let the matter drop for the moment. The rest of the ride home was spent in silence, although Alana’s mind was whirling with all the ways she would torture Stefan for what he had done to Elena.

Damon pulled smoothly up in front of the house, even going so far as to open the door for them and walk them to the porch.

“You gonna be okay,” he asked softly, gazing deeply at Elena when he did.

Elena shrugged, tilted her head up and then dropped it back down before saying, “I’ll survive. Somehow, I always do.” There was a slightly bitter tone to her voice, and Alana rubbed at her sister’s arm, offering comfort.

Damon squinted at the both of them. “You know,” he began slowly, his tone careful. “Stefan won this round for us today.”

Alana and Elena gave him identical looks of skepticism.

“He pushed Klaus to the edge and Klaus blinked,” he explained.

Alana rolled her eyes and Elena sighed and turned away from him. She walked a little bit down the porch before turning around to look at Damon, and Alana could tell that her sister was a little shaky around the edges.

“Well, his methods suck,” she said decisively and her eyes looked a little watery.

“Still,” Damon went on. “We needed it. Klaus has been calling all the shots this whole time and Stefan beat him at his own game. He was the better villain.”

“Don’t sound so impressed,” Elena rebuked softly.

“Well, can’t help but be a little proud,” Damon said with a smirk.

Elena shook her head before turning to go inside.

Alana watched her go before turning to look at Damon. He was staring after her twin in a way that lovers did – it was a little pitiful.

“You can’t blame her for being upset,” Alana spoke up, and Damon’s eyes snapped over to her, his brow inching upward in question. “What Stefan did to her, it has got to be effecting her psychologically.”

“Oh, and all of a sudden you’re an expert?”

“I know my sister,” Alana corrected, frowning seriously. “She went off that bridge. Our parent’s died on the bridge. It’s . . .” Alana trailed off, not knowing what words she could use to describe how Elena could possibly be feeling.

She sighed after coming up with nothing and said, “Stefan was wrong. And now it’s going to take Elena even longer to forgive him.”

“Who says she’s going to,” Damon asked defensively.

“Oh, don’t get all jealous on me,” Alana told him, waving his words off. “Elena _loves_ Stefan. I can see that and I just got here.” The hurt was slowly started to make itself clearer on Damon’s face. Alana felt a little bad, but the truth was the truth.

“Look,” she told him, her voice softening as she reached out her hand toward him. Damon jerked back, putting space between them.

“It doesn’t really matter to me, but you’re wrong,” Damon said through his teeth, and then he added petulantly, “And I’m not jealous.”

Alana rolled her eyes at the tough guy act. She stared at him for a long moment, forcing back all lustful thoughts and really _looking_ at him.

On the surface, he seemed normal, but his eyes were like windows to the soul he claimed to not have. And those icy blues eyes spoke volumes for the love he had for Elena.

It almost hurt to see, really.

“Damon.” Alana’s voice was muted as she looked up at him sadly. She stepped forward, passing over the line of personal space. “You can’t kiss her anymore.”

“Who said -- she _told_ you,” Damon demanded.

Alana’s expression turned even sadder as she shook her head. “She didn’t because you didn’t kiss her.” Damon looked suitably confused. Alana sighed before saying, “You kissed _me_.”

Damon’s expression froze, his eyes closing off in a way Alana had never seen it do before. She wasn’t really sure what else to say, but she didn’t really have to. In the next moment, Damon whirled around and stormed off. Alana watched him speed away in his beauty of a car, feeling a little bit like she had crushed every last one of his dreams.

* * *

Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, _stupid_.

The mantra repeated itself over and over again in Damon’s head as he winded his way through the streets back to the Salvatore Boarding House.

Never in his life and non-life had Damon ever felt so _fucking_ stupid.

How the hell did he manage to kiss the wrong girl? _Again_. What was that saying, ‘Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me!’ And he sure as hell was fooled twice. It was like he had learned nothing from being tricked by Katherine.

“Damn,” he cursed, banging his fist against the steering wheel.

 _She was acting like Elena_ , a tiny voice whispered in his head.

But that wasn’t a good enough excuse. Alana was _nothing_ like Elena, even when she was acting there was still something Alana-ish about her.

Damon _knew_ that. He was probably the only one who knew that actually.

_Well if you love Elena so much, you should have known that that wasn’t her._

Damon glared at nothing in particular and wondered when his conscience had become so sarcastic. On seconds thought, when did he even get a conscience?

_Just admit it. You actually like Alana. That’s why you kissed her. You don’t even really care that it wasn’t Elena._

“Oh shut up,” Damon grumbled before he realized he was arguing with his conscience. Granted, his conscious was being a real pain in the ass. Ironic that he would have a conscience that liked to play devil’s advocate.

Not that it was right.

_I am right. That’s why I’m your conscience._

Damon banged his fist against the steering wheel again.


End file.
